Being an Open (Face)Book

Caught in the middle of one of the most publicized controversies in Facebook’s history, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress and responded to questions regarding Facebook's data collection policies. The hearing came as a result of public uproar over Facebook’s involvement with the data collection firm Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook released a statement on March 16 that stated that Cambridge Analytica, a firm that helps political campaigns reach online voters, received the information of more than 87 million Facebook users via an app created by Aleksandr Kogan. Under the guise of a “personality predictor,” the app collected users’ data and sold it to the firm.

Since then, millions of Facebook users have downloaded copies of the data that Facebook keeps on them. Students have realized that the site not only keeps track of every single photo, text message, voice message, and the like, but also uses their personal information to create an advanced advertising and interests profile—which means that Facebook is actively piecing together a political, regional, and personal profile of young students.

In fact, even before the first day of school, incoming freshmen are told to create Facebook accounts. Big Sibs are encouraged to emphasize the importance of Facebook to their Little Sibs at Camp Stuy, and even talk to parents that are reluctant to let their kids start accounts.

The main reason this advice is given so frequently is that clubs and student organizations advertise exclusively on the “Dear Incoming Stuyvesant Class...We Have Advice” groups that incoming freshmen are added to. The Spectator, for example, spreads news of its recruitments and publishes applications on its Facebook page. Indeed, Facebook is an asset for smaller clubs trying to publicize themselves; a quick post in the Dear Incoming groups can attract the attention of hundreds of students and potential members.

Facebook is also a useful academic resource for students. Almost all students use Facebook groups to crowdsource advice and answers to important academic questions, especially about advanced placement and honors courses. These groups frequently include upperclassmen who have already taken the course, thus providing yet another helpful resource for students.

Facebook’s extension, Messenger, provides class—even period—exclusive group chats that allow students to ask questions more personally. Messenger’s utility also lies in how accessible it makes peers. Without Messenger, acquiring a peer’s contact information, such as their phone number, is a hassle, but Messenger allows students to contact their classmates, even if they don’t know them well.

Because of these uses, Facebook has become ingrained in the Stuyvesant community and holds an important place in the school’s culture, such that freshmen who don’t have a Facebook account often end up feeling pressured to create one by the end of their first semester. Students who are opposed to creating a Facebook account—for privacy reasons or others—will ultimately be left out of a large part of the academic and social culture at Stuyvesant, finding themselves unaware of application deadlines and school events.

Though most students began using the site as an academic tool once they entered Stuyvesant, it has come to the point where not having an account can mean certain social death—but having one, and using it as regularly as many students do, can spell out privacy issues. With all this in mind, we must reconsider the ways we interact with social media. Facebook has become ingrained in Stuyvesant’s club/pub culture to the extent that students who don’t have accounts are excluded.

Given concerns both about privacy and the exclusivity it fosters, students should make an effort to explore alternative options for publicizing events and group communication.

For example, while e-mail is considered outdated and reserved for more formal conversations, it is something that every Stuy student has access to through stuy.edu accounts. Additionally, e-mail is more secure than Facebook and doesn't rely on advertising for a profit. Creating a Google group for your organization that is updated with the same information and reminders available on Facebook makes your club more accessible.

In addition to using Facebook, student organizations that wish to promote themselves should take advantage of the bulletin boards and wall space our school presents and use posters to promote themselves. Many events are also broadcasted over the daily announcements.

As we look to the future, students should also consider alternative private messaging systems that are unlinked to a social media account. While Facebook does allow users to access Messenger without making a Facebook account, it is glitchier and less useful without the account link.

We acknowledge that because of its convenience, the student body is not going to abandon Facebook by any means. We encourage you to consider, in your use of the site as a link to Stuy rather than just a link to friends, that you make Facebook an expansion of your organization, not a part of its main platform. How and why we allow ourselves to engage in a consumer-selling system should be a choice made mindfully, and students have the right to consider it based on ethics, rather than have their social and extracurricular lives hang in the balance.

[A note to conspiracy theorists: If you, like SOMEONE on our staff is scared of the internet and all of the spying it does on your instant messaging, The Spectator recommends Signal, a private messaging app that uses encryption methods to keep your messages just that: private.]