Facebook issues
 

Hi Ladies!

I don't know if i'm posting under the correct thread, but I need help brainstorming. My chapter is having alot of problems with members' facebook profiles. It's so annoying! We have spent at least an hour discussing this issue in every chapter meeting since March and many of the profiles are still not appropriate. I mean we are all adults and the sisters should know what is appropriate and what is not. Recruitment is coming up in 3 weeks and I'm concerned. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, but not everyone is at the same level when considering what's appropriate and what isn't. Just because someone's an "adult" doesn't mean they're obligated to behave "adult-like". There's a difference.

There's only so much you can do. Is your Exec Board allowed to slap them with fines and/or put them on restriction if they don't comply with your chapter's internet policy? Personally, I don't believe in either of those examples and I really think it might make the situation worse.

Maybe I'm saying this because FaceBook was just in its Beta stages when I finished college, but if you're concerned that PNMs might look at you folks negatively because of a few FaceBook profiles, then you're probably be better off without them anyway. Focus your time and effort on putting on the best recruitment ever and don't waste it worrying about a few bad profiles.

If you're concerned about members' profiles not being appropriate, then why not just tell everyone to make their profiles private during recruitment?

Apparently UF chapters had this same problem. So much so that Panhellenic put a stop to the madness. In order to reduce the amount of contact between PNMs and actives, and also to prevent tarnshing the image of the Greek community as a whole, every active has to set their profile to private (friends only) from April through recruitment.
If an active's profile is not set to private, the chapter is fined. The chapters then hand the fines down to the active. As far as I know, this has worked well for us. I keep mine on private year round just for safety's sake (now that facebook is open to everyone).
You might try instating a fine, maybe $25 or so. This way you aren't forcing your sisters to clean up their profiles or change what they may feel is a personal expression, but you are protecting your chapter's image as a whole.

Maybe try giving them a choice--they can either keep the pictures but remove any reference to the sorority and their membership, OR they can keep the references to the sorority but have to remove photos or anything else inappropriate. It becomes their choice then. If they don't change it, then using whatever judicial structure you have in place with your chapter would be appropriate.

After looking through the Webshots, Photobucket and Snapfish sites I suggest the active chapters include these in their bans.

HITY (hoosier is that you?)

Probably the biggest problem I've seen is that for some people they don't realize that you were talking about them. Oh, you meant me? Yeah you!

This may sound harsh but I've found that after you've done the general warnings/discussions, direct confrontation and even embarrassment gets the quickest results. One option is to pick up the phone and call the specific members. Another is to announce a list of names to the Chapter of who needs to clean things up. Nobody wants that phone call or to be on that list.

We've also set up a volunteer committee to randomly check pages throughout the year. It's easier to take care of these things one at a time rather than trying to clean up dozens before Recruitment. Plus you never know when a future PNM or even a parent might be scanning through your members' pages.

I like ufpiphi's suggestion - everyone should make their profiles private. If you're doing this because of rush, and you single people out and discipline them, it will make them feel negative about rush and that's the LAST thing you need.

kddani, OT
Hello. No, I am from the University of Southern California.

At Purdue, the actives have to deactivate their facebook accounts the day that accepted freshmen receive their purdue email addresses. It is harsh, but it keeps the freshmen from looking up sisters and chapters having to police pictures, etc. Then when recruitment is over, the actives can reactivate their account, and they still have all their info, friends, etc.

Thanks everyone. I will bring these suggestions to the table. Personally, I am not on Facebook so I don't know much about setting profiles to private and such. I appreciate everybody's input. Thank you

It might be too late to make a suggestion, but I figured I might as well.

What we do on our campus is everyone keeps their profiles on private and then during the week of recruitment all sorority women de-activate their accounts. Its even written into recruitment rules, so if you don't deactivate that week your chapter could potentially get into trouble. Since PNM's are more likely to get on facebook after thier rush night is over and look up the girls they met that night, it works out well.

This was a big problem at my university as well, so for this upcoming recruitment Panhellenic actually applied some rules:

-Facebooks and myspace's should be private
-Rho Chi's must erase any "How you know this person" especially if it says So-and-so are members of XYZ sorority
-Actives CAN NOT add any PNM's
-If Actives & PNMs are friends/siblings/etc and already are friends on Myspace/Facebook, Actives must delete PNMs from friend's list

This is all to protect the identities of the Rho Chi's so its fair to everyone.