Facebook Secret Page: Good or not?
By Amber Chan
       
"I've found a Year 2 BA student very charming. He's half Chinese, half Thai. I like him. By the way, I'm a boy too."

It was a Facebook post on the University of Macau Secret Page (UM Secrets). Most of the university students know the existence of this Facebook page or even have posted on it. The UM Secrets has got 4,768 likes so far.

Earlier this year, Facebook set up a new wave of anonymous secret-sharing pages in the whole world. You can create a secret page of your high school, university, company or your city. But they may already exist. Now, open Facebook and try to search for "Macao Secrets" and see how many likes it gets.
   
How does the anonymous secret page work? First, of course, the administrator opens a new Facebook group which can be set as a private group or a public group. Then participants can write anything they want to share on a Google form and the administrator would post the "secrets" anonymously on the secret page. Since people can avoid using their real names, they can express their feelings or ideas more directly, however, sometimes irresponsibly. Let me use "UM Secrets" as an example, a number of students - actually quite a large number - always blaming certain student associations on UM Secrets. The members of the associations would counter the claims. And they would start to attack each other with aggressive words. Finally everybody would join in and it would become a terrible conversation.
   
"I never posted and commented on the UM Secrets, but I've liked it and received the latest update every day. I like to read the 'secrets' and like to see people arguing. Sometimes it's just like watching a movie," said Edwin, a year three UM student who did not give his surname.
    
Many people find the UM Secrets problematic. So a new Facebook Page appears: UM Page. The description of this page is "An open platform for UM students. To use you real name. Feel free to talk about anything. There are no more secrets." But it only has about 880 likes so far.
   
We all know that the social networks has  huge power to influence everyone. The research "Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults," by Dr. Kross (University of Michigan) and Dr. Verduyn (University of Belgium) (2013) [full name?] concluded that "those who used Facebook a lot were more likely to report a decline in satisfaction than those who visited the site infrequently. In contrast, there was a positive association between the amount of direct social contact a volunteer had and how positive he felt."

In my opinion, if people release their depression or anger through the anonymous secret page, they would never learn the right way to deal with the relationship problems and understand the importance of communication. And more people will start to publish irresponsible words. It would harm the community atmosphere of the university and the relationship between students.

Someone Pretended To Be Me On Facebook!

John (fake name according to the interviewee's willingness), a Year 4 UM student, considered he was one of the victims of the "secrets".

Reporter (R): What happened to you on the UM Secrets? And when?
John (J): I found it soon after the start of this semester. Someone copied my own status which I posted on my Facebook timeline. He/she then pasted it on the UM Secrets Page. I didn't find it until my friend told me. After that, someone started pretending to be me and wrote some posts. I think it's really malicious, not just for fun.

R: Can you guess the reason why someone impersonated you to post on the page? Did you join a conversation there before?
J: In fact, I didn't follow/like that Facebook page. However, sometimes my Facebook friends would share some posts from the UM Secrets. I had replied saying some posts I thought were inconsistent with the fact. And I also blamed this kind of synonymous speech on Facebook. I guess people who impersonated me wanted to get some 'likes' from others so that they wrote some shocking statements.

R: What did you feel when you found it out?
J: When I found it out, I felt I was not respected, frustrated, and even insulted. It's really ridiculous. It's not how a university student should behave.

R: What did you do to respond?
J: I have endured it, but still left comments on some of them. I did share the screen capture on my own Facebook timeline because I believe the person is my Facebook friend and he/she would see my sharing.

R: What do you think of the UM Secrets?
J: Undoubtedly, it gives an open platform for students to express opinion. It would be good if people use it properly. If not, we should examine whether it corresponds to the intention of this Facebook Page: "To share your little secrets and read others". Some posts on the Page are nothing related to UM, and some attacking certain people. Then, of course, the Page wouldn't be a good thing for the victims.