Sorority Facebook Monitoring
 

Hey everyone,

I have an issue that has been bothering me for some time now. I am an officer in my house, and I have tried to go back and forth weighing the pros and cons of this situation.

My sorority monitors our Facebook, and last semester the passed a by-law that says we can get in trouble by our standards board, meaning you can get a strike.

The Following is in our bylaws:

"It is expected that all members’ profiles and photos posted on Facebook, MySpace, etc, reflect a positive public image of Tri Delta.

The VP/PR shall be responsible for auditing member profiles on Facebook, MySpace, etc.

Questionable items on pages where a member’s Tri Delta association is obvious shall be brought to the attention of the Standards Committee. The Standards Committee may require the member to remove the item from the web site if they feel it is in the best interest of the chapter to do so. If the member does not comply, a strike may be issued."

Now I understand drinking in our letters, and I can understand that their trying to save the integrity of our house. For one girl represents everyone, and a bad photo can do that. I have my photos on private and and facebook on private. However you can't control if someone has an album and there's a photo of you. I'm also a very conservative individual, and yet for some reason this just hits me wrong.

I just don't know how I feel about this, and I don't know if its crossing a line. How far is too far? How can you say one person gets i trouble for a red cup versus another. Is allowing our standards board to monitor our facebooks crossing the line?

If any one has words of advise or reasoning, that would be greatly appreciated.


Thank you

Most companies already do this, I think that it is a reasonable request if you are putting yourself out there as a member of an organization. It also says right in your standards that it is only questionable content where your affiliation to Tri Delta is obvious. This seems reasonable if you have Tri Delt all over your profile than lose the other stuff, if you want to keep drinking photos and other "questionable content" then remove anything that makes your affiliation obvious.

I can also point to the fact that something a member of a international sorority on my old campus had on her page got seen by someone she added to her friends' list and the entire chapter was severly punished, they were very close to losing their charter. It's cases like this that have made people really crack down on Facebook. In Canada if you are an employee of the government of Canada, especially within the Prime Minister's office, you are not allowed to be involved with social media to avoid leaks and indescretions.

Typically a Bylaw revision/amendment requires a majority (simple or 2/3's) vote by the members. So I must assume the majority of your sisters felt this was appropriate and necessary to protect the image of your Chapter. Not trying to be mean here, but how you feel about it is irrelevant because it is policy.

Now with that being said, if you are strongly against this and enough others are too, you could propose the Bylaw be stricken. Research your I/natl and local procedures regarding how to change your Bylaws.

Go read through the Risk Management forum. Check out how many groups have been suspended or lost their charters because of things which were found on Facebook or Myspace. I know that some national organizations actually employ people to comb through members' social networking profiles trying to find RM violations.

And for what it's worth, when I'm working with my clients in a legal setting, I *always* tell them to either make their social networking sites "G-rated" or to take them down entirely (preference strongly towards the later) as often these sites are fertile ground for discovery when character is at issue.

Further, it's good to be in this practice now because in all likelihood, your future employer will expect this of you. Think of this as good practice for the future.

I absolutely agree with this ...

The internet is a public place. Even taking the steps to make your page "private" does not guarantee privacy. This being said, be your own editor to create the image you want for yourself and leave the questionable stuff off all together.

It is likely that your headquarters already has a policy regarding facebook and other social networking sites and usage. The chapter's bylaws are probably to supplement that, and to provide a way for the chapter to keep a good image. One idiot posting someone in XYZ letters doing a kegstand can get an entire chapter in serious trouble. Too many ladies put in too much hard work in your chapter to have something like that ruin everything.

If someone else has a photo of you on their profile, then it's not on your profile or under your control. I see what you're saying, and I agree completely with what everyone else has said about FB and MySpace being "public places," but the bylaw you quoted seems to be specifically aimed at things a sister has control over. It refers to "member's profiles and photos" and to "auditing member profiles." It also says that a strike will be issued if a member fails to comply with a directive to remove "[q]uestionable items on pages where a member's Tri-Delta association is obvious." That seems to assume that you have the ability to remove it, which you don't if someone else posted it on their albums. (And would the Tri-Delta association be "obvious" in someone else's album?)

If you have no control over it, then it doesn't seem to me that your bylaw covers it.