Keele University has told students that they could face legal
action from staff for defamation and harassment, and a spokesman
said that the university is introducing a new policy to deal with
the problem.
"A number of students have already been written to by the
university warning them of the unacceptable nature of their
comments on Facebook and that any further activity of a similar
nature will be dealt with severely," said a university statement,
according to the BBC.
A spokesman for the university said that it has not yet decided
the details of the policy it will introduce.
The establishment of a policy on the use of social networking
sites for all students setting out what is and is not acceptable
could in some cases form the grounds for the expulsion of students.
It could also act as a significant disincentive to students to post
in the first place.
With or without a policy, staff could take legal action in some
cases against students over postings, but this may not always be
the best course of action, according to one legal expert.
"We would generally advise that going so far as to sue students
may tend to be counterproductive in both drawing more attention to
the comments made and often provoking ill-feeling and further
actions," said Louise Fullwood, a lawyer with Pinsent Masons, the
law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM. "However, taking steps such as Keele
has done can usefully set a precedent as to a university's
expectation of standards of behavior of its students."
Universities could find that they increasingly have to act in a
similar way to Keele as social networking sites grow in popularity
and university staff become the subject of comments.
One option for universities or for staff is to contact the
websites involved directly. The Keele spokesman said that in one of
the incidents referred to in its statement the university contacted
Facebook and it removed the offending comments directly.
"Most reputable networking sites have terms of use, which
require users to warrant and agree that their use of the service
will not be harmful, threatening, unlawful, defamatory, infringing,
abusive, inflammatory, harassing, vulgar, obscene, fraudulent,
hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable," said
Fullwood. "Where a posting breaches such terms then the website
operator could be requested to delete the relevant entries or ban
the users concerned."
"While there is no intention to stop students having fun and
using these sites in a responsible manner, we draw the line at
offensive, derogatory statements," said a statement from the
university. "We will not tolerate abuse of any kind and whilst open
debate is encouraged, it must be carried out in a responsible
manner without resulting in any individual feeling victimised or
harassed."
Legal action over such postings does have a precedent. Former
teacher Jim Murray successfully sued an ex-pupil for libel over
comments posted on Friends Reunited, an early British social
networking site.
