Is posting a public Facebook picture of my teacher in a private group wrong?

[SpinRichard32]

Hi, so recently me and a couple of my friends found a picture of our lecturer on his Facebook, we arent friends with him but it was his profile pic and he had the settings as public so anyone can see it, the picture was him striking a somewhat embarrasing pose. Anyway I decided for fun to post this in a private group that consists of about 14 of my friends from college.I left it there for a couple of hours and then after I felt everyone had seen it and had a good laugh I deleted it. When I next came in to college my lecturer asked me to come with him and took me into another room and apparently one of my "friends" told him what i had done and he was pissed off and was telling me off like i had done something terrible or illegal.

Did I really do anything wrong? It was only there a couple of hours and I only shared it with people who I know and trusted just to entertain them and make them laugh. Also my lecturer made the decision to make the photo public.

What is your opinion?

[вοοм!]

No it's not illegal.
It wasn't right sharing that picture with 14 other people also.

[deboerdn2000]

while it isnt illegal, you should have asked his permission. you are lucky he isnt taking it higher up. you can keep it to yourself but you shouldnt have shared it with everyone else without his permission. how would you feel if it was done to you without your permission.

[Jessica]

well you posted it without his permission so yea its wrong, but i dont think its that serious

[SpinRichard32]

Yeah but deboerdn2000 im not stupid enough to make an embarrasing picture public AND a profile pic. The groups age range is from about 19-23 so we arent immature people who would do something stupid with it. And so its ok for my friends to look at the picture individually but not all together? Also why would I be worried about him taking it higher up if it wasnt illegal?

[Fred]

His picture wasn't set to private and if anyone could see it, you did nothing illegal by posting it.

However, what you did was a bit unethical. He IS your lecturer and you did post it just to embarrass him (even though you say it was to make people laugh...isn't that the same thing as using it to embarrass him?).

Since he is your lecturer and he is in charge of your grade, if I were you, I would apologize for using the picture, but explain to him that if he doesn't want this to happen in the future, he needs to set his account to private. I mean, if you didn't post it, anyone looking up his name could have seen it anyway.