Missouri passes law against teacher-student Facebook friending

Missouri law bans student-teacher Facebooking

MSNBC is reporting that Governor Jay Nixon recently signed into law Missouri’s State Bill 54 to make it illegal for students and teachers to become friends on Facebook or any other social networking site. The goal of the law is to prevent inappropriate relationships from developing between the teachers and the students. Any type of direct communication between teachers and students on the sites is specifically banned.

The law explicitly states that teachers are not to use any websites for work related purposes unless they grant total access to school administrators as well as the parents and guardians of students. They are also prohibited to have personal websites that allow for communication with current or former students.

Critics of the move suggest that it might seem like a good tool for preventing relationships from developing, but it also implies a lack of trust for the motives of teachers. They are also concerned about the possibility that limiting social networking sites might limit educational opportunities in the future as these sites increasingly become the most commonly used methods of communication. While Missouri is the first state to pass such a law, other school districts around the country have requested that teachers limit online interaction with students or have issued strict guidelines by which the communication can take place.

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For Google+, off to a speedy start

There’s something to be said for starting a social networking site with the backing of a web behemoth.

The new Google+ is growing at a faster rate than Facebook, Twitter and MySpace did, becoming the first social networking site to hit 25 million users within its first five weeks, according to a study from comScore.

It took the other three sites at least 18 months to get to that point.

Though all three still have bigger overall audiences than Google+, it’s only a matter of months, if not weeks, before this new player overtakes MySpace with its 35 million users. And if its growth pace continues, it should surpass Twitter’s more than 105 million users within the year.

Facebook will be a different story. ComScore notes it would take some time for Google+ to match that site’s 750 million users, and there’s no betting it will.

As analysts point out, there’s a huge difference between 100 million and 750 million.

Still, the general rule is that once a social network has reached 20 percent of active internet users in a market, it’s here to stay. Google+ is currently around 12 percent in the U.S.

The main thing Google+ has going for it is, of course, its association with Google. Unlike MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, which were the products of good ideas from relative internet newbies backed by venture capitalists, Google+ has a natural platform to launch from via the roughly 180 million people who engage with Google each month.

Many are finding their way to Google+ through the popular Google email program, Gmail. But the site has also received tons of media attention and, ironically, people are sharing their affection for Google+ on Facebook and Twitter.

Though most of Google+’s traffic is coming from the United States, India is also seeing a good deal of growth on the site, which launched June 28.

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Meanwhile, here are some other social media stories that have the web buzzing this week:

* Last week Media Life reported that Facebook was deploying a video instructing users on how to disable its new photo-tagging feature, but apparently that move is not good enough for German regulator Johannes Caspar, the data protection supervisor in Hamburg. He wants the world’s biggest social network to disable the service permanently because it may violate privacy laws in Europe.

If Facebook does not reply to the letter Caspar sent yesterday, he could fine the company $426,000, according to reports.

* Forget stuffing ballot boxes, is Republican Newt Gingrich stuffing his Twitter feed? That’s the allegation from Gawker, which claims just 8 percent of the 2012 presidential hopeful’s 1.3 million Twitter followers are real people. The rest are spambots, inactive or dummy accounts tied to his campaign, according to an analysis by social media search company PeekYou cited by Gawker. Gingrich’s campaign harrumphed to ABC News that those allegations were bogus.

* If you’re still using the old Twitter interface, you’re in for a change this week. A full year after it was rolled out, the new Twitter will replace all of the old versions this week. The social networking site had been allowing users to choose the old or new platform as it refined the new one and ironed out some kinks. But earlier this week, Twitter announced on its account that it was finally phasing out the old version.

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