Missouri Prohibits Teachers and Students To Be Friends On Facebook

Facebook has been quite a rage among young generation these days. Surprisingly, the many adults and senior citizens too were found caught by this fever. The social networking site offers everything that a modern audience desires.

It has games, super cool applications, amazing chat options, social groups and a lot more. With so much to enjoy on Facebook, people are going ga-ga over the site these days. No wonder, it has been under strict scrutiny of critics and those against the concept of social networking site.

In shocking news in Missouri, people are stunned by the news of prohibition announced for teachers and students on Facebook. Yes. If you are a student living in Missouri,you’d better stay off from making friends with any of the teachers or professors in your school and college.

The announcement was made and this will soon get legal support from the Government. Students have been warned that any attempts of making friends with teachers on Facebook will be considered illegal. The activity will also result in dire consequences.

As per the Bill 54 passed by the Missouri Senate, the law will go into effect on 28th of August 2011. The bill will be passed not only for Facebook bit also for all social networking sites. Students will be prohibited from making friends with their teachers on all networking sites such as Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace and a lot more.

The effort is set a clear boundary between teacher and student. However, some reports by KSPR have cleared that it is not just about prohibition on direct social media contact.

It is about teachers being allowed to create Pages on Facebook in way that all students have direct admission to the teacher’s profile in a public and social setting. The access is completely denied and prohibited.

Inapt interaction between scholars and educators is at the origin of the legislature. The latest Senate Bill 54 is intended towards protection towards children from sexual misbehaviour by teachers. They even compel various school districts to adopt well written policies established between teachers and pupils on the World Wide Web.

This means that they will not be allowed access to electronic media, sites related to social networking and various other types of communication where there are chances of students and teachers to mingle.

It is not ethical for teachers and students to be friends. They can be friends inside the class and share feelings and express views about various topics related to curriculum. However, any relationship established outside the class is not good.

The problem is that no one knows how the whole thing will get monitored. Here are some questions that arise:

•    Will the state have access to Facebook accounts?
•    What about access to personal computers?
•    How will the state have Internet service provider records?
•    How to know who is befriending teachers or friends?