Local Social Media Expert On NYC School Crackdown

April 2, 2012 11:18 AM

(credit: aaron tam/AFP/Getty Images)

Reporting Steve Murphy

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Twin Cities expert on social media takes issue with the actions of a private school in New York that penalized students for using Facebook.

The all-girls Jewish school declared Facebook as immodest and ordered 33 girls to delete their Facebook accounts and pay a $100 fine.

The head administrator of the Beis Rivkah High School in Crown Heights in Brooklyn said the site is “not a modest thing for a Jewish girl.”

Holly Matson, director of experience planning with Bolin Marketing, told WCCO’s John Hines the school made a bad decision.

“It makes no sense to simply take (Facebook) away from them,” said Matson. “What needs to be done here is to teach them how to properly use the tools. The other thing that you’re going to see on stuff like this is that if kids want to do it, they’re going to do it.”

Matson says one solution might be to have students privatize their Facebook accounts so their comments are not publicly accessible.

Local Social Media Expert On NYC School Crackdown

The other 99%

So when will Facebook become Myspace, were no one cares about it anymore?
Susan

It’s a private school.

It’s none of your business.

tan pup

What’s none of WHOSE business? The media or the private school? If you are stating that private schools can do whatever they want to the students and the students have abided by those rules, and compromise any personal freedoms; what’s next, sacrifices on an alter? If you are stating it is none of the media’s business; that is disturbing because it is the media’s responsibility to inform the public. It should concern everyone that not only do employers’ use social media for employment selection but now religious institutions want to silence select groups by using intimidation through created false perceptions and control by persecution.
Southsider

Yep Susan your right. Now get back in the kitchen.

Elwood

What makes Holly Matson an “expert.?” Does she have a PhD in social media stuff. or is she just self-proclaimed?

Holly Matson

Hi Elwood, I did not state that I was an expert in Social Media. However, social media is my field of work and has been for over 5 years. Like all things in social media, people having differing opinions on how they should be handled and for this example I have shared my take on why this doesn’t seem to be the best route for the school to take. In instances like this, simply taking away the tool in efforts to make the students’ online behavior more modest isn’t the best strategy. This could be used as a learning opportunity for the students, their parents, and the school about how to properly conduct yourself online. Teenagers make mistakes, but in the digital age these mistakes are easily amplified online. It is important to stress this fact with the students instead of simply taking away a tool that could have many benefits to their social and educational environment.

I would be more than happy to chat more about this topic or get your stance on what you feel the school should have done.

goop

I am surprised kids even use their real names or grant search access to people of authority. I thought it was common practice to have one real account with a fake name and one “parent” account that you let adults and everyone else see.
Swamp Fox

Why is this even news? The school, as reported, is a private parochial school for girls. Attending a school of this type subjects all attendees to the rules, standards, and regulations under which the school operates. Since this is ‘not’ a ‘public’ school but one operating under parochial religious ethics and rules regime then banning Facebook or its usages in the confines of the school is not a ‘public’ issue!

We me not agree with the school but it’s their policies and rules that what parents also pay tuition for.

This story and the school’s rules are not subject to ersatz social “Political Correctness” malarkey, Constitutional ‘freedom of expression’ arguments, or false tenets on Facebook usage and privacy standards that the school is taking issue with. Besides, there is no true privacy on the Internet, Facebook, or cyberspace! [Even these comments, I am posting here can be read anywhere in the world!] If you don’t like the school’s policies or standards then go elsewhere.

There are other more pressing issues facing society than banning, for parochial ethical reasons, Facebook usage from students at a private school.
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