By Danielle Capalbo

There are dozens of ways to embarrass yourself on The Facebook. Drunken pictures. Incriminating wall postings. An “interest” in recreational drugs. Now, however, your Facebook profile could come back to haunt you. It could get you in trouble with administration, or even cost you a future job.

Despite the common perception that only students can access The Facebook, the site’s growing popularity has brought it to the attention of administrators and law enforcement officials. This means Facebook profiles, formerly created with only peers in mind, could have more sweeping consequences.

“The Facebook is evolving, and students need to be careful when they’re putting their info out there,” said journalism professor Liz Matson.

Matson herself is a member of The Facebook.

“One of the reasons I put my own Facebook posting up there is that if I teach this stuff, I should be out there and part of it,” Matson said.

Though Matson supports the site, she also warns against the assumption Facebook is a private space, accessible only for students or professors.

“You should always consider anything on the Internet a public space. Anyone could read your stuff at any time,” she said.

There is some fear around Northeastern that law enforcement officials might be using Facebook’s “My Parties” feature to aid them in finding disruptive parties and maintaining campus safety.

“I’ve seen parties on The Facebook that have withheld their whereabouts so that they wouldn’t be given away to Northeastern police,” said middler electrical engineering major Neil Marketkar.

However, Northeastern officials said this fear is invalid.

“We don’t use The Facebook as a tool to find parties to crash,” said Associate Director of Public Safety Jim Ferrier. “It’s not something we have the time or inclination to do.”

This rumor may have started because a student recently called the public safety office and alerted them about a party she saw on The Facebook that was open to everyone, Ferrier said. Northeastern Police went to that party to warn the students against letting the party get out of hand, however, Ferrier said that was the only instance where NUPD has used The Facebook as a resource. Nonetheless, Ferrier advised students to be wary of putting their information on the Internet.

“If you think when you put your personal information on Facebook it’s only viewed by college students, you’re wrong,” Ferrier said.

Cameron Walker learned the hard way. Walker, a former sophomore at Fisher College, was recently expelled for questionable postings on The Facebook regarding a law enforcement officer at Fisher. Walker’s postings appeared in a Facebook group whose goal was to have the officer fired.

“It wasn’t meant to be serious, just a place to vent because this guy was not the nicest cop. He really loved to give students a hard time,” Walker said.

Mere involvement in the group, however, was not enough to result in Walker’s expulsion.

“I posted a comment on there, calling him a ‘douchebag’ and saying that he sexually harassed me and another student. I suggested we try and start a petition, or set him up – basically, that he needed to be eliminated,” Walker said.

Walker said his claims of having been sexually harassed were true, and he is not entirely sure how his post attracted the attention of Fisher College President Charles C. Perkins.

“I was told that I violated anti-harassment policy, computer policy and that I was coercing other students into conspiring against this guy,” Walker said.

Walker is not holding The Facebook accountable for what he said were violations of his First and Fifth Amendment rights.

“I didn’t get any due process. Before I actually received my expulsion letter, I got a handwritten note from President Perkins telling me to be in his office at 10 a.m. the following Monday. When I got there, the dean of students and chief of police were there too. I was ambushed. I didn’t know I was going to be in an administrative hearing, so I didn’t have a chance to bring in witnesses, or develop a case to defend myself,” Walker said.

Although Walker is unsure what earned his expulsion, John McLaughlin, chief of campus police and official Fisher College spokesman, said the reason was clear.

“Cameron Walker was disciplined for violations that he found himself in pursuant to the Fisher College student handbook. He violated provisions for conduct. There are other issues at play, but those are confidential,” McLaughlin said.

The discrepancy between the views of Walker and the university may be the result of new and unprecedented forms of media, Matson said.

“It’s a new area in law, and I think a lot of people don’t know what to make of things like The Facebook,” she said.

Even students are divided on the issue. While many feel The Facebook is a place for personal expression without interference, others say using caution is only common sense.

“It’s the Internet, and everyone has access to it. Too many people seem to think that there’s some magic barrier between what happens online and in real life. The Internet is a public place, and if you’re stupid enough to post something online that’s bad enough to get you expelled, then quite frankly, you probably deserve it,” said Eugene Abovsky, a junior computer science major.

Nicole Santospago, a middler criminal justice major, said she thought The Facebook was never intended as a way to police students.

“The Facebook is a way to get to know people, not to exclude students from activities on campus,” Santospago said.

Although Matson’s profile is fairly tame, listing yoga and gardening as some of her hobbies, she doesn’t want to see student expression stifled.

“I hate the thought that there’s going to be this huge chilling effect. In my generation, if you screwed up when you were 16, that kind of disappeared as you got older,” she said.

Now, Matson said, if you’re 25 and applying to law school, one incriminating Facebook posting might just come back to haunt you.

– Staff writer Hailey Heinz contributed to this report