Laura Bergus

The gap in knowing the answer to “Why Facebook?” between those who use social networking and those who don’t is painfully illustrated in the chambers discussion between the juror who tweeted and updated his status on Facebook during the Fumo corruption trial. Juror Eric Wuest, put on the spot by the judge and defense attorneys, said Facebook (endearingly called “Facepage” by the judge for the first several minutes) was a journal for his thoughts, having no target audience and seeking no direct replies. Those of us who have used social networking know that he’s right: very often we will share our state of mind, an experience of the day or our feelings for others without regard for who will or might read them. Occasionally such posts are a call for action, response or even for help, but these are the exception rather than the norm. Hearing a defense attorney suggest that the Facebook update “Eric Wuest is thinking ‘what if?’” was somehow intended for the audience of the 600,000+ members of Philly’s FB network and that it was somehow identifiably connected to the Fumo trial is laughable.

It’s clear from what Wuest says that he’s not a blogger (although he did have an out-of-date anonymous blog (for which his profile has been hidden since I first looked on 3/17 and where he identified himself as pscyho, all in good fun)) and doesn’t use social media very often. In fact, he sounds like an average, relatively passive user, citing only a handful of Twitter followers and noting that the “game” of Facebook is to friend anyone who you might recognize, just to see who can get the most. He also said the blogs he reads are “joke blogs,” with animals doing funny things or people in strange situations. My heart broke a little for him a little knowing that saying “Oh, nothing related to the case, it’s just FAILblog and I can has Cheezburger!” would get him nowhere with the crowd in the judge’s chambers.

In the end, luckily, justice prevailed. Wuest was escorted out of the room after defending his innocuous posts and the judge and attorneys debated Wuest’s credibility as well as the probability of mistrail-level risks involved with such internet use by a deliberating juror. For the record, the state’s attorney advised, “[Using Facebook like this is] a new thing for us older people, but it’s what everyone is doing.” In response the judge said, “And they’re doing it to a ridiculous extreme…No doubt this is a very important issue.” Speaking to the nature of Wuest’s answers during the discussion, the judge said Wuest was “Just like any other witness. Some of the answers might not be totally accurate…[But to warrant a mistrial] there has to be a prejudicial aspect to this.” He continued to say that Wuest was just the kind of juror you want: one conscientious guy, “more aware of [his duties] than I would ever imagine a juror being” and trying to do the right thing. The judge denied the defense’s motion to remove Wuest from the jury and Wuest continued in the deliberations.

UPDATE
I’ll admit I get a thrill out of seeing the gears of a giant bureaucracy turn. And on my crusade to push our law school to get real about social networking, which started as shaming them into admitting that even people who post beer bong pictures on Facebook might deserve a chance, I am starting to feel such a thrill. My law school’s career placement office has drafted a survey for students about how the use social media, and they’re happy to let me help put together information for students, staff and employers on the subject. If you would be willing to critique this survey, please email me for the link. Thank you!

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After whaling on my career placement office in my last post, I realized that whining does nothing to fix the problem of law students being advised to limit their online identity. But instead of offering help for developing something that might educate students on the strength and beauty of online networking, I kept my mouth shut. Why? Because I’m in law school. And that means I am competing with my peers in a way that I’ve never competed with anyone. I am in training to participate in the great “adversarial system” that we call the exercise of justice. My instinct was not to help, because then these same people that I’m competing with for grades and for summer jobs will have just as much advantage as me. And as I recently learned in my negotiations class, those who take the high road in the legal profession often get run over by the Mack truck of borderline ethics.

Then I had a good conversation with a career placement counselor, and his goodwill convinced me to try to change things, success be damned. So now is the interesting part of this experiment, where I get to find out how the bureaucracy responds to what might be, to them, a crazy and dangerous proposal. Stay tuned.

Once again, the career placement office at my law school is there for me. This time, it’s to remind me how bad the internet is when you are looking for a job. Their weekly email newsletter sent to all students included a “REMINDER RE USE OF FACEBOOK AND OTHER SITES WHILE JOB SEEKING.” Ah-ha! I thought: perhaps they are catching on to the value of fb as a professional tool. Maybe they now see that 150,000,000 people can’t all be wrong.

If only. Here’s what they had to say:

For those students seeking employment, please remember that it is now a common practice for employers to check Facebook, MySpace and blogs when considering prospective hires. Remember it may not even be your entry, but that you appear somewhere else in what an employer may feel is a “lack of good judgment” situation. Make any deletions/corrections now…..it is not always as easy as one may think to delete something or have it taken down. We have in the past two years had students lose offers because of the above and have heard from employers last fall that in searching several of our students, they found information that entered into their hiring decisions. Please be cautious. What you post should be professional.

This narrow view does nothing more than illustrate how little the people espousing it know about the internet, let alone about the power of social media. They forget that most students have grown up using online tools to meet people and share information. Students today have far and away a better understanding than administrators and faculty of what it means to put themselves online. We know who might be looking, from our grandparents to federal agents. We know that once something is online, it never goes away. We know how easy and assumed it is that our name will be googled the instant a potential employer finds us even remotely interesting or hirable.

And most of all, we know that things we post on facebook in an album entitled “Let’s pretend it’s undergrad!!” or “Never again: New Year’s Ughhhh” will for the most part be taken for what they are: windows into the real lives of real adults. If a potential employer can’t deal with pictures of beer bongs and lingerie, they probably shouldn’t be conducting research about recent college grads on, well, facebook.

Imagine how dull the world would be if all you could gleam about someone from the internet was “professional.” No pictures of grandkids, no sharing recipes or hobbies. Just where you’ve worked, your GPA and a laundry list of carefully sanitized “interests.” That’s not the world I want to participate in. I trust someone who finds me on LinkedIn to know its purpose, and the same of facebook or twitter.

Let’s have a conversation about the value of getting to know people, and the internet as a vehicle to meet. Career services should understand this: they’re willing to send me off to BigLaw cocktail parties to network, but shudder to think if the photos therefrom ever see the light of day…