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When you join an academic network on Facebook, you verify your standing at that institution by confirming your academic email address. But because universities and colleges often use two different identity systems for staff and students, Facebook can tell who is staff and who isn't.
Most of the time, a staff email address will be in the form of initials or full names, whereas students' will be initials and an incremental number added to the end, Z.A.Whittaker vs. zaw2, for example.
But in some institutions, staff have complimentary student email addresses which entwine with their network username and password, along with their staff email. This address used through Facebook's network validation can confirm themselves as a student rather than staff - allowing them to potentially see your profile.
This has its consequences for them though. What they can see, you can probably see. So unless they want you to see them engaged in some depraved, drug-fuelled sexy orgy with a number of their postgraduate researchers, printed and posted on every lamp-post on campus, they would be wise to avoid this.
Still, setting yourself as a non-member of staff on Facebook adds that extra level of protection between you and the university. Or failing that, systematically search through all of the names you deal with during your lectures, seminars and tutorials and block them one by one. This doesn't avoid other members of university staff prying though.
Frapes and how to mitigate damage -->
posted by Zack Whittaker
November 6, 2009 @ 1:25 pm
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