[The law might be different in other countries. I'm sharing from my area's perspective.] Although this may sound like invasion of privacy, they kinda can. While staff are allowed to glance your private life (like how a regular person would do), they are
NOT allowed to use that data for their own benefits or against you. However, if you post something related to an institution or a company (whether it's from your school/job or not), for example,
- a picture of your school
or you in school
- picture of you in a uniform
or anything related to your institution (like:
other students, physical infrastructure, staff, even if you used the school the school WiFi to post something)
they can use it against you.
There are social media platforms dedicated for educational or professional purposes, such as LinkdIn. Some institutions/companies will definitely judge you by your LinkdIn profile, if you ever own one, so try to keep things neat.
Teachers will always say things like that so that students don't do stupid things. I don't know if institutions are allowed to request private information on a student from the company itself. This sounds stupid tho. However, there are people employed to scan students' social media feeds.
And yea, if your social media is set to public, they will definitely check your profile out.
Also, if they find something that may not abide to your country's laws or ethics, such as:
- posting pictures with alcoholic beverages (doesn't matter if you're drinking or not)
- posting pictures of you smoking
or pictures related to any illicit substances (Marijuana leaf, syringes...)
- posting sexual
or suggestive contents (sexting, memes...)
- publicly defaming someone or a school/company (trash-talking)
- posting racism related content (memes etc...)
- participating in protests, riots, strikes or defending wrong-doers
say goodbye to your admission.
Best things to do is:
- set your social media to private/friends only
- have a decent profile picture
- try not using your real full name on social media platforms (to check this, search for your full name on Google to see any highlighted results)
- avoid using swear words
- avoid media attention (except if you are doing something good)
- avoid politics
-
avoid posting memes - post good and positive things
- start deleting bad posts/comments
- if your profile is totally messed up,
deactivate/delete your account!. But you should at least own one or it will a little bit too sus.
This doesn't only apply to colleges, but for workplaces as well. Same goes for internships/apprenticeship. Remember, this can ruin your future too.
Again, this may not apply to everyone. It can be different in any other parts of the world.
You can show your teacher this post and have a debate on this issue together with your classmates. Try collecting as much information as you can to clear all your doubts.
Tl;dr - read it.
