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Intelligence
More on Facebookgate

Intelligence

More on Facebookgate

Dec 19, 2008By Michael Stoner

I posted a link to the unfolding (unraveling?) story of Facebookgate this morning [Andrew Careaga called it Facebookgate]. There’s been a lot happening today; more to follow on SquaredPeg.

Briefly: Brad Ward had just looked at some interesting action on a Facebook group ostensibly set up by Butler University’s Class 0f 2013. Problem was that when he looked at group’s creator, Patrick Kelly, he realized that no one by that name had even applied to Butler. He recalled that his friend and colleague Michelle at WInthrop University had also encountered Patrick Kelly on Winthrop’s Facebook group. More digging revealed that Kelly and a small group of linked friends had created a slew of Class of 2013 Facebook groups at other colleges and universities. Lots of digging by Brad and a slew of collaborators at colleges and universities across the country linked this activity to CollegeProwler.com.

Today, CollegeProwler came clean. According to their CEO, posting on SquaredPeg:

Until about an hour ago, I was unaware that College Prowler was working with another company that may have been using fake aliases to create to these groups. The groups that College Prowler was responsible for creating were set up with real accounts. Here are the names that are associated with College Prowler, and they will all be removed immediately from the Class of 2013 groups…

I know that a lot of people in admissions, advancement, marketing, and other departments are uncomfortable, even paranoid, about social media like Facebook. And this is just the sort of incident that has the potential to exacerbate concern about the new social media landscape.

But I can see ony good news in this story. The incident illustrates just how smart institutions should act, monitoring-and responding-to disruptions in their online presence. 

First, Brad Ward was paying attention to what was going on with Butler University’s Facebook presence. Not because he wanted to intervene inappropriately in the Class of 2013 group, but because he wanted to know who was involved and what the conversation was about. That’s what helped him identify the weird activity in the first place.

Lesson: It’s essential to have your staff be part of what’s happening on the social web. They need to know what’s happening and to be monitoring what’s going on.

Second, Brad himself was connected. While Brad identified the problem and started investigating it, he wasn’t alone. He relied on a network of colleagues at other institutions. Lots of people got involved-they’re part of the strong community connected by email, the blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. There is a lot of wisdomand people-power-available to someone who identifies an issue like this.

Lesson: Stay plugged in yourself, not only to the external community on the social networks but to the growing community within higher ed.

Ultimately, this incident illustrates why institutions should have involvement in social networks like Facebook. Incidents like this are going to happen, and with more frequency. You’ll only know about them-and be able to respond-if you’re involved in the conversation and know how what kinds of responses are appropriate.


  • Michael Stoner Co-Founder and Co-Owner Was I born a skeptic or did I become one as I watched the hypestorm gather during the dotcom years, recede, and congeal once more as we come to terms with our online, social, mobile world? Whatever. I'm not much interested in cutting edge but what actually works for real people in the real world. Does that make me a bad person?