Students ordered to shut Facebook

Institute threatens expulsion if they do not close their accounts

A school in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district has directed its students to close their Facebook accounts and warned of strict action against those who did not comply with the order.

While the order has triggered resentment among the students of Doon Valley School at Deoband in the district, about 450 kilometres from here, the management finds nothing wrong with the directive and has justified it.

“Students are misusing the Internet. They are wasting time on Facebook and as a result they get very little time for their studies,” school chairman Raj Kishore Gupta said. “The step has been taken to promote discipline among students,” he said.

He said Facebook did not contribute to their studies in any way and hence was of no use for them.

Gupta said the directive would be strictly implemented. “Strict action will be taken against students who are found having a Facebook account. They may also be expelled from the school,” he said.

The ban imposed by the school comes at a time when the social networking giant had said that it has paid over one million dollars in the past two years to security researchers who report bugs on its website. India was second among the recipients of these bugs. India has currently 78 million Facebook users.

Earlier also, several schools and colleges for girls in the state had imposed a ban on wearing jeans on the campus, saying it would help prevent harassment. The management had then contended that ban was also aimed at discouraging ‘indecent clothes’ on the campus.

The ban, however, had tobe revoked by the colleges after the students and the parents sharply condemned it.

The UP government had also warned colleges of legal action if they did not rescind the order.

In Meerut, however, parents supported the decision of a girls’ college to ban jeans.