Facebook groups not affiliated with college and universities target class of 2013
12.19.2008 – New trend discovered by Brad Ward, electronic communication manager at Butler University, show more than 300 '"Class of 2013" Facebook groups are interconnected with a group not affiliated with a specific college or university.
All groups are linked to College Prowler, a higher ed college guide written targeted to college students.
Each of the 300+ groups were populated with many of the same College Prowler employees or from an affiliated company using fake aliases and were registered as group administrators or group members, giving access to new students.
Ward says of the group administrators, "Think of the data collection. The opportunities down the road to push affiliate links. The opportunity to appear to be an 'Admin' of Your School Class of 2013. The chance to message alumni down the road. The list of possibilities goes on and on and on."
With a mission dedicated to "protecting new students pursuing higher education," Ward and others decided to look into this trend and began dialogue on several social networking sites. The conversation sparked many volunteer advocates to assist with research on Class of 2013 Facebook groups.
Luke Skurman, CEO of College Prowler, says, "We do pride ourselves on being forward thinking and aggressive. In this instance, in its current form, we have crossed the line and to reiterate, we will be removing our administrator privileges from all of these 2013 groups immediately."
Volunteer outreach from more than 30 people via the microblogging source Twitter, assisted Ward in conducting massive research into these groups. All results are available via a public Google document.
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