What is this "Bathroom Wall" feature on Facebook?
Technology can provide great collaborative opportunities -- but this isn't one of them. "Bathroom Wall" is just what it sounds like: a public space within Facebook where your "friends" can write anything anonymously on your wall (about you, mostly), and all your other friends can see it and add to it. It's the number one anonymous application, with more than 150,000 monthly active users. While it would be divine to think that people were using this tool (which wasn't developed by Facebook) to give positive shout-outs to their friends, instead it can get savage and down and dirty. The worst of it? Whatever is posted is from someone your kid knows and has already labeled a friend.
by Liz Perle, Editor-in-Chief
Technology can provide great collaborative opportunities -- but this isn't one of them. "Bathroom Wall" is just what it sounds like: a public space within Facebook where your "friends" can write anything anonymously on your wall (about you, mostly), and all your other friends can see it and add to it. It's the number one anonymous application, with more than 150,000 monthly active users. While it would be divine to think that people were using this tool (which wasn't developed by Facebook) to give positive shout-outs to their friends, instead it can get savage and down and dirty. The worst of it? Whatever is posted is from someone your kid knows and has already labeled a friend.
A bit of advice: First, don't let kids under 13 have a Facebook page if you can help it. Check your kids' browser histories and see whether they're going to Facebook. If they are, they have a page -- whether they fess up or not. Second, encourage them not to join in. Remind them that if they post on someone else's Bathroom Wall, they're leading with their chins and can expect the same. Third: Have a talk about the difference between a Facebook friend and a real one. It will quickly become clear that real friends aren't cowards who slam you behind your back right to your face (I know, anatomically impossible, but hey, this is technology -- anything can happen).
Part of the "job" of being in middle school and early high school (where much of the nasty bits happen) is to figure out who you are and where you fit in socially. Kids have always been included and excluded, been kind and cruel. Acknowledge the public nature of Bathroom Wall, which escalates cruelties into full-blown humiliations. The advice you give is probably the advice you got. Know who your real friends are, don't engage with bullies (and post defensively), and try to avoid situations that hurt. As curious as your kids may be about what's being said about them, the old adage holds: What you don't know can't hurt you.
I only got a facebook so I could talk to my friend in the Summer since we weren't going to see each other at all. Both of my parents have a FB and I'm friends with them so they know what I'm doing. I only add people I know, and I don't add people I barely know from school either. But a something like the Bathroom Wall is stupid I'd never go on it.
As an adult, I am quite disturbed by some of the "open group" Facebook app's I've been seeing as of late. There are posters who cyberbully people (ie trolls) that deliberately sit upon various board topics waiting for people to defend or oppose these outrageous, vulgar, inciteful, racist comments. What makes it worse, is that they do not act alone: there are cyber "gangs" that reach each other accross the world, trading their profile names, pictures, and such amongst each other, leaving the innocent (and singular) poster helpless to their cyber onslaught. What is more sinister, is that some of these groups appear to have ties to disturbing cult activities, or possibly anarchist mission statements. I have a singular bit of advice to tell people, as Facebook administrators really are nonexistant: This is a free world posting place, and all comments are under the guise of free speech. With that in mind, be aware that your comments are being targeted by these groups and they will try to "befriend" you via inbox message: DO NOT REPLY TO THEM: what Facebook neglects to tell the public is that if you reply via message to them, you give them access to your profile page for 30 days. In other words, if you do not raise your security/privacy settings, ALL your info is exposed to them all, not just the one cyberbully. Your pictures, email address, phone number, friend's lists, groups and app's you belong to are at their disposal. As an adult, please make sure if you have kids posting that the safest thing to do is have them first go through each and every security application and select the most private and least accessible choise, especially when it comes to the pictures, as this is how the cybergroups "steal" and make the fake profiles and identities. One of the best ways to do this is to take the time and form your friend's list into select groups and then custom select these groups to your privacy settings. Be aware of the fact that even with the privacy and application settings, your postings may still be available through third party applications and advertisements. BE AWARE!!
Facebook is a good social network tool, but all the applications can be stupid. Seriously, do I care what 'My Little Pony' I am? Or 'Marching Band Geek' application, and getting marching band gifts? No, I have SOME applications, but nothing like 'Bathroom Wall', that's just wrong...
My son and daughter both have Facebook, and I have one to monitor them.
We have agreements:
1. I know both of their passwords.
2. Both have well over 200 friends, and I am allowed to un-friend whoever I feel appropriate.
3. No cursing, dirty jokes or revealing pictures.
4. I approve all pictures that go online.
5. They must be friends with me, and I check weekly to see if they have unfriended me.
i don't have a facebook, it seems stupid. i am 11 years old and if i want to talk to friends, we just call each other or meet at the park nearby