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In Bethesda, a Yearbook Facebook Fiasco

IT WAS DEJA VU for students at Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda when yearbook distribution time rolled around last month. Many of the pictures published in the book were ones they'd seen before — on the Facebook social networking site.

ScreengrabThe shots hadn't been snapped by photographers for the Walter Johnson Windup, they were taken by the students themselves at non-school events. And as The Post's Daniel de Vise reports, the incident has sparked a debate about privacy, copyright infringement and journalistic ethics:

Desperate and crunched for time, yearbook staffers resorted to filling pages with photographs downloaded from student Facebook pages. They did it largely without the permission of students and without crediting photographers. ... The episode illustrates how complacent the denizens of Internet vanity sites have become about sharing the artifacts of their private lives, and how, with the click of a mouse, their lives can become very public.
Facebook spokesman Matt Hicks gave The Post no comment on the Windup incident, except to say that users are urged to seek proper permission to republish photos on the network.

» "From Facebook to a Yearbook, Teens Get a Jolt" [WaPo]

Screengrab from Walter Johnson High School's yearbook Web page

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COMMENTS (1)

  • As long as no one had a banner that read "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"...

    By Sligo , Posted June 26, 2007 2:19 PM
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