December 2008 Unethical Websites

Fake Profiles on MySpace and Facebook

A pair of cases now before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involves students who were disciplined for ridiculing their principals by creating fake profile pages on MySpace.com. Ever since a fake MySpace site contributed to the tragic suicide of teenager Megan Meiers, communities have been sensitive to the potential harm that can be done by creatively misleading websites. On the legal issues, courts are divided. A Western District of Pennsylvania judge ruled that school officials violated the First Amendment by suspending a student who had created a fake site featuring his school principal. It was, the court said, off-campus speech and thus Constitutionally protected. But a Middle District judge found that school officials have the power to restrict a fake site that is vulgar or lewd.

The legal question is whether an on-line publication created off school grounds that nonetheless is aimed at a school audience and reaches into the school via the internet is protected by the First Amendment. The American Civil Liberties Union, predictably, sides with the parody-creating students. The issues being debated include whether the fake sites actually are disruptive to the school, and thus reasonably and legally within the school’s jurisdiction.

The courts can sort it all out. But the ethical question is an easy one. The social networking sites exist so people can represent themselves on the web. Making a site that purports to belong to someone else for the purpose of misrepresenting him or her to others is dishonest, no matter how funny it may be to some. It is certainly true that most fake sites are obvious: one of the MySpace sites in litigation used a photo of the parodist’s school principal and described him as a 40-year-old married, bisexual man whose interests included "being a tight ass," "fucking in my office" and "hitting on students and their parents." But genuine sites can be outrageous too, and there have been many instances of education professionals posting unprofessional photos and text on their own spaces.

A parody site should clearly and visibly state that it is not genuine, and if the subject is not a public figure, he or she ought to be afforded the opportunity to consent to the site’s content. For their part, social networking websites should specifically forbid unauthorized pages that create fake profiles of non-celebrities, and enforce the rule. These sites are no more and no less than on-line lies, and often vicious as well.