My RA at uni used Facebook to coordinate floor wide games and events. Several on campus organizations exclusively used Facebook to inform people of events.

FB was not a requirement for attending uni, but it was a requirement for being fully involved on my campus.

I don't really agree with rantwasp and in his/hers answer to you I don't understand what he is talking about lawsuits.

In my university (in Europe) not only several student organizations used exclusiveley Facebook, but professors (well students really) as well.

For example, we would be teams of maybe ~10 -20 people at a given hospital department and because situations were fluid and changes constant we needed to coordinate. Times of impromtu lectures obviously weren't set, patients that may be of interest for all to see & know the case etc were always changing. The doctors would inform one student and then depend on the students informing each other for all these things and guess what they used. Facebook & messenger.

In this situation the only out was depending on a person who had a fb account to inform me which did add extra difficulties. That is what I did mostly but it wasn't easy.

That sounds horrible. Universities — especially public ones — should relay communications through either open standards (email) or through a university maintained website.

My university in Canada did well in this respect. I would have thought that European universities would be “enlightened” to the fact that using a private company to relay university communications is a mistake.

I'm at a public University in Europe and can say that we do occasionally rely on third parties, but only such third parties with which we have an appropriate contract.

We also have self-hosted equivalent for almost everything and a quick email to the data protection officer will get problems rectified swiftly.

Most student organizations are also very mindful about not using third party services for their events. However, we often get the feedback that many students would rather we just use Discord rather than Mattermost/Jitsu/...

There's no basis for such a lawsuit. You might not like it but they're not breaking the law.

That would depend on where the parent is from. In Germany you would absolutely have a case if your public University tried to make you use Facebook. In fact, you could probably skip the lawsuit and just report it to the appropriate authority.

I don't think any public university is making someone use Facebook. The issue is that every single event is posted on Facebook so your options are either 1. create a Facebook so you can find out, 2. don't participate, or 3. inconvenience your friends by asking them to tell you about all the events.

Consider attending law school so you can learn the law instead of just guessing what it might be.

i considered it, but they want me to signup on FB, so no thanks /s

There are cases where there might be a basis for a lawsuit (some professor at a public university hiding in Facebook)

But for the way the student leaning group organizes or the restaurant down the road takes reservation or what medium is used by the parents of my child's school class to discuss things is not a legal concern.

> i’m gonna bet you real money that 1) either they had multiple channels (ie you didn’t really need FB) or 2) they will pay legal fees through their noses once the shit hits the proverbial fan.

I'm interested in this bet. How much and what are the terms?

> games and events

Not tied to uni but virtually mandatory to participate in social events. Sure you can just say to simply opt out but then it might be more difficult to socialize.

A friend of mine successfully quit for years. He moved to a small town recently made a new account because "small towns apparently run on Facebook". While but true for everyone it's true in some places

Unfortunely without FB studying (attending) would be 10 times harder.

What country are you in? In the US everything school related goes onto Canvas, Blackboard or Moodle. There's some other tools people use as well (Piazza being popular at some schools), but I've never heard of school info going primarily on Facebook, even for study groups.

There's a lot of of informal stuff that you also want to know/be aware of from those facebook chats.

It's not like the school itself requires you to use FB, but students desire to use it as a way of _our_ communication

Interesting. Around here, that all goes on GroupMe or Discord.

I've been studying in different "mode", cuz it was on weekends so you could work while studying.

Because of that I've been studying with people that were e.g 25 or 30 at 1st semester, so probably FB was the handiest solution for everybody.

I guess if I started now with 19/20yos, then Discord would be way to go.

I'm not getting the link between study and Facebook. Is it required in your country?

When I was in school, a lot of the teachers would create Facebook Groups per class to share documents, prep-work, assignments etc..

I think the school moved to a self hosted Moodle[0] by now, but when I was there having a Facebook account was definitely required.

A friend of mine is also struggling with his kids' soccer practice as they only organize and do announcements over Facebook.

[0] https://moodle.org

it isn't, but if you don't want to make everything harder for you

like being aware of what's going on - (projects,tasks,exams,blabla), communication with all other students

then you're basically forced.

It’s also not a requirement to have a phone, or internet, or electricity. Harder sure, but not a requirement right?

I’d use “grid electricity” as my example. You can generate your own in the right circumstances, with a lot of benefits, but it can make things kinda difficult.

I agree with you that electricity is something that is required to live a "normal" life. Facebook is not.

at some point of the increased difficulty it becomes a requirement.

holy shit dude

yea, water is required to live, facebook is required to get degree times easier in my example, those aren't mutually excluisive

what do you want to argue here about, except just arguing for the sake of arguing?

I don't like fb, I don't use it when I don't have to and after graduation I'm probably not going to use it more often than once a X months,

but I had to have & sometimes use it unless I wanted to make my life harder - I don't like it, but that's the reality.

>should use at least another channel

how are you going to convince $whole_group_of_students_of_given_year to move communication off the facebook?

By not participating, loudly. Easy as that

By taking part you just make this more normal/ok than it really is

How do you participate in a boycott loudly when you can't announce your lack of presence?

That's like protesting a party by leaving the room.

one person that has the ethic compass to let you know when things are happening + someone who shows and loudly complains is enough to enact change. i swear that people nowadays would sell their soul to the devil just to not go though minor inconveniences.

You cant? Facebook is the only way of communication?

Partially! People of that age group don't trade phone numbers anymore. Nor are email threads a thing. The only thing unseating FB right now is Discord.

Great. When I was in high school, Facebook was used for organizing all the student activities. I didn't have Facebook and of course people said they'd let me know through other means. Spoiler alert: they almost never did.

So the alternative was to either bite the bullet and create a Facebook account or be left out of a ton of activities. And no, making them go somewhere else wasn't an option. I didn't have any leverage in that negotiation.

I can appreciate that by giving in I am at worst part of the problem and maybe today I'd do it differently, but I really didn't fancy crippling my social life and I wouldn't blame anyone for making that choice.

Maybe that would work now (while nowadays some people look confussed at me that I don't have an instagram account) but at least ten years ago that brought a reaction like "weirdo" and people continued to use their group. In some cases you have a friend who relates messages to you.

In these days, where in presence school in many places doesn't happen students know each other only virtually, if you don't hang out where the crowd is, there is no chance of getting information.

If some group of friends shuns you because they insist on you using Facebook, then I have bad news for you: they might not be such good friends as you think.

I’ve been off FB for close to 10 years now and I can say with confidence that it has not had any measurable detrimental effect on my social life. My friends know I’m not there and know how to contact me, and they do. An event that is exclusively organized on FB is not an event I want to participate in, so I don’t. Dumping FB probably improved my social life and mental health since I’m not wasting so much life “scrolling the feed” anymore.

As do, I but in some situations it's hard to avoid. But good it works for you.

and if nobody moves then?

then I'm at the disadvantage, sad but that's the reality.

There is no objective definition of “participating in life”.

What quibble of semantics.