Merton unveils secret disciplinary weapon: Facebook
Students celebrating before the annual Time Ceremony, above, were targeted by officials using Facebook
Merton College authorities have logged on to Facebook to find out evidence of student misconduct. The web-based surveillance emerged after a crackdown on drunkenness at this year’s Time Ceremony on Sunday morning. The annual event aims to “mend the tear in the space-time continuum” caused by clocks going back, and is a highlight for students with a penchant for port.
Deputy Principal of the Postmasters Nina Salove used the popular student social website to extract photographic evidence of student debauchery at the infamous event. Around 30 Merton students received £25 fines via email this week for taking part in “unauthorised gatherings” during the evening. One second-year undergraduate who challenged her fine received an email from Miss Salove directing her to a photo that had been uploaded to Facebook on the evening of the alleged offence.
The email read, “This [photo] is part of the evidence presented by the Deputy Principal of the Postmasters in support of your having been in contravention of the College Regulations. If you have been correctly identified, then you will have obviously been in breach of the Regulations” The second-year Historian said she was “totally shocked” by Salove’s response and urged other students to beware of college authorities using Facebook to spy on students.
“It’s quite clear that she must have gotten that picture off Facebook • it might even have been that she used the newsfeed to find my friend’s album with the photos on it. “Other people at Oxford really need to be aware of the dangers of using Facebook. We should start censoring what we put on there if it’s going to be used by college authorities to check on us.
The treatment of students by the Deputy Principal of the Postmasters during this event has caused unrest among JCR members. One Merton student criticised Salove for using Facebook as a spying tool. He said, “She’s new to the job and she’s trying to make her mark but she’s overstepped it. “This is a college of mature, intelligent students, not a bootcamp. I think it’s outrageous that she’s using Facebook as a source of definitive evidence because it clearly isn’t.
“She’s taken £25 from a number of my friends who didn’t do anything wrong. She accused them of taking part in room gatherings that were illegal because it was past midnight, when in fact it was before midnight at the time when the pictures were taken”. Salove has even been accused of ripping a student’s coat in her eagerness to prevent him from engaging in misconduct.
One student has written an email of complaint to the Deputy Principal of the Postmasters accusing her of tearing the interior lining of his jacket in her haste to verify his identity. He said, “We were all rather drunk, running across the quad and she came up to me and demanded my name. When I told her, she didn’t believe me, and she grabbed my jacket and asked to see my bod card as proof. That’s when it tore”.
He has asked that she waver his £30 fine in light of the extra cost of repairing his jacket. “It is going to cost me some money to have it repaired, so in effect a £30 fine is going to end up as rather a lot more in practice,” he wrote. “I wondered whether in light of this you might be willing to reconsider.” Salove declined to comment. The Merton Time Ceremony has taken place since 1971 to mark the turning back of the clocks for daylight savings time.
Barry Press, one of the founders of the ceremony, said, “It is designed to remedy the ill effects of modern man’s abrupt interference with the diurnal cycle.
2nd Nov 2006