Should a school be allowed to view their students social networking cites?

[Curious Fin]

Do you think that school be allowed to view their students Facebook, Twitter, Etc sites. Do you think it would be an invasion of privacy or to keep people responsible and safe?

[Maggie Anne]

They have no legal right to demand to view anything of yours online, if you decide to keep it private.

If you change your information to private, they can't see it..and there's no way for them to get permission, except from you.

Technically, if they are viewing your twitter or public facebook, they are doing nothing wrong. It is not an invasion of privacy because you are the one that decided it to be public. Public means public..

It can keep students safe, sure..but it can also be annoying for the student, especially if they judge them for it, or use it against them.

There are both sides to it, like anything else.

[alamericankid]

Well, I'm going to a private school and they don't seem to be doing so, but I wouldn't blame them if they did. It would be to keep responsible kids in our school and bad ones out. Our school is practically founded on facebook, every club has a facebook group. Plus, businesses may check your social stats. A while back I heard about someone who got a job at some office. Her first day she went to her cubicle and went on facebook talking about how boring her job was and how her boss was evil. Her boss just so happened to be checking facebook and saw her comments and was fired before her first day was even over. Morale of story, schools should check social sites to keep an eye on what's going on.

[ganges]

Your school has no legal right to demand access to your personal networking profiles. However, if your privacy settings make your profile public, the School would be able to view it just like anyone else. I also really don't see how it would be keeping anyone "safe".

[A person]

INVASION OF PRIVACY!!! and you wouldn't have to worry about them being unsafe if you had a class on cyber bulling and online predators and stuff like that....you should have a school Assembly for an hour and teach about that unsafe stuff and have some activity's and/or interactive things to keep the students listening.

[ashley]

I remember when I was still in school and the principal would find students on Myspace and Facebook and suspend them if he found pictures of them drinking or partying to hard. I do not believe that is right though. What you do outside of school in nobody's business but your own. I believe it is a total invasion of privacy and if the person who is sitting around looking at students profiles then maybe he or she needs to get a new hobby. Best bet is to make your profile private. That way only people you want can see it.

[T]

Not sure....but I have found a site that is great for kids and seems really safe too. It is called Kidswirl....my kids absolutely love it! They have some teachers on the site as well with "virtual classrooms"....seems pretty cool.