That Facebook app is not your friend | Hacker News Reader

That Facebook app is not your friend

itworld.com

22 pointsabennett23 comments

Am I the only one who found the most troubling item in the article that the middle school is handing out 3 day suspensions for "even a minor social network offense".

How is that even allowed? If I were a parent with a child at that school I'd be joining the PTA and campaigning to have whoever implemented that policy fired. Schools shouldn't be trying to police what their students say or do while at home.

We have laws for threats & libel, let's have our schools handle education and let our judicial system handle legitimate complaints if there are threats of violence or whatever.

These policies are quite typical. Schools often punish students for the things they do outside of school.

It's even constitutional sometimes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick

Which is just one more way that the US school system is an insane caricature of real life.

My daughter had "Lover of the Day" installed, which named her uncle as her Lover of the Day, which was simultaneously hilarious and really, really creepy. I had her uninstall the app about 5 minutes after I saw what happened.

Only tangentially related, but my friend saw a shirt that said "Uncle With Benefits" for sale somewhere.

That's another one of those things that are hilarious in principle, but you never really want to be caught in.

That's from T-Shirt Hell: http://www.tshirthell.com/funny-shirts/uncle-with-benefits

I make it a point not to install any facebook apps. I don't need them, or want the extra functionality that they provide, and I don't want my info being shared with an outside app. I use facebook so my family members know what's going on with myself and my wife and kids, and to keep in touch with old friends.

Maybe you didn't read the linked article - it points out that applications installed by other people can access a lot of your data directly without your permission, because you shared it with those people and they installed the app. I personally didn't realize how much information it supported sharing automatically, so I just went to FB and found the control panel and turned most of that off.

Yes, I did read the article, and what I meant was that I don't install any of those apps both to protect myself and all of my friends. I agree with you that it is pretty scary how much info is being shared automatically.

The sad thing is that while we all know this (especially if you've spent any time writing Facebook apps), it's our parents generation and our kids that apparently do not. I'm saying that hoping to encourage us all to do a little user-education whenever possible. This link doesn't do much good on HN. Share it with your non-techie friends.

(Side note: I wonder if you could create a Facebook app with the sole purpose of creeping out people with the amount of information they provide?)

Has been done:

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=114232425072

You say "our parents generation" and "our kids", but I'm pretty sure 90+% of our generation doesn't know any of this, either.

Yes, I agree Facebook Apps are often not your friends, but because they sell the data they mine off of you to spammers and the like.

This example is awful. That teacher is unprofessional, imho, if she was even friending her students. At all schools I have been to- It is against the rules for teachers to contact students for reasons other than school work related issues. No playing Xbox live with my awesome Art Teacher =/. But if I were that teacher, I would accept full responsibility for (1) Joining a Social Network and not knowing what I was getting into, and (2) Becoming friends with the people I teach and the consequences that follow

Actually, the few high school teachers of my oldest son who friend him on Facebook are his most professional and caring teachers. (He does a distance learning program, and I think he has not met all of his teachers in nonvirtual life.) Teachers can use social networking responsibly--I've seen it done--just as anyone can use it irresponsibly.

It's really saddening to see those views. The last thing students or children need is cold robot-like "professional" interaction. Connecting on a human level is one of the most important ways a teacher provides value beyond that of a book or video series. I've had good friendships with 2 of my former teachers, and my life is better for it.

I guess I should have said she was unprofessional if she acted upon that lover of the day thing. I have great friendships with a lot of my old facebook teachers and I am facebook friends with some of them. They are truly good professional people. I just don't think that person is professional because she can't handle a social network, yet chooses to participate in the fray.

nice discussion. thanx for sharing my blog post here.

a few points of clarification. the teacher in question is a substitute teacher. not on staff. she's also the mother of a student there (pretty common at this school -- it's a charter school, earthier and crunchier than most).

the 3-day suspension rule is a bit extreme, I agree. but schools are very concerned about bullying and harassment online, so they're taking a hard stance. I can see why. there was another incident at this very school where one student started a facebook group with the title "XXX XXX is gay" (substitute a 7th grader's name for XXX XXX). he did it as a joke, but he got a 3-day suspension for it.

it's a real problem, and there aren't any easy solutions. saying "don't use facebook" isn't gonna work. the kids will use it, regardless. and at that age they really don't understand the implications.

cheers,

This is ridiculous. Once the children are off school property they no longer have a teacher/child relationship. The teacher is a citizen at that point and should have the same recourse as a citizen (e.g. alert the police if a fight is going to take place off school property). Suspending children for something they do on social networks on their own time? These teachers should lose their teaching licenses.

TLDR; Anytime one of your friends uses an app with default settings, it has access _your_ information. To disable, Facebook -> Account -> Privacy Settings -> Applications and Website, uncheck everything. Even then apps can still access basic info like your name and location.

lesson learned? don't put important private info on social networks.

Like your name? Because that's all this app needed to cause a problem.

I know this is very much a minority opinion, and I suspect your question was rhetorical, but my answer would be "yes". Actually, my answer would be "I don't use social networks," but that's rather beside the point.

You know what they say about two people and keeping secrets. It just happens to be a lot tougher to correct your mistake when one of the "people" (the database, in this case) is fully mirrored in three or four different places. Much easier to just be cautious and not make the mistake in the first place.

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