Accessing facebook via email?

[shadowx]

I do have facebook but I have 9 friends, 3 of which are family so forgive any stupid questions here...

 

There were a few emails coming from facebook to student email addresses, after a google I have learned that you can update FB status/photos etc.. by emailing your personal email update address. My question is, could you reasonably use purely email to use facebook? Obviously we have the FB urls blocked and what not but could these students be receiving email updates via their school address then sending off status updates by email too and thus be using facebook?

 

This would only really work if you could have two email addresses registered to facebook, their personal one for signing in etc.. and their school one for receiving update emails.

 

Any insight?

[Gaz]

They could setup a filter on their personal email at home to forward facebook email to their school email but I doubt they do the reverse of that at school if they can't access their personal one. So they could get the updates but not send anything as facebook wouldn't accept an email update for that user from a different email address to avoid spamming.

[shadowx]

Ah ok thanks, so you can only send updates to FB using ONE email account and not two or more?

 

In which case like you say, it's unlikely they would want to use their school email address as the "primary" way to update facebook, although it's possible...

 

Looks like we will setup a simple exchange rule to get rid of facebook emails to a) be on the safe side and b) stop them thinking they can get one over on us

[elsiegee40]

Have they used their school email to create a facebook account?

[Gaz]

Facebook are big on clamping down on fake accounts and such so its highly unlikely you could send an update from an email address thats not the one that your facebook account is registered too.

[shadowx]

Have they used their school email to create a facebook account?

 

Thats the other option but it just seems so.....stupid really...

 

And thinking about it, while the email account is technically the school's "property" the facebook account isn't so if they were to use their school email I wonder where we stand legally when it comes to deleting their email when they leave the school... Hmmm

Facebook are big on clamping down on fake accounts and such so its highly unlikely you could send an update from an email address thats not the one that your facebook account is registered too.

 

An interesting point, I have no idea how it works to be honest, whether or not you have to authorise an email address before you can send updates or whether, like you said, you can only use the registered address. May have to dig some more on that front, thanks!

[elsiegee40]

Thats the other option but it just seems so.....stupid really...

 

And thinking about it, while the email account is technically the school's "property" the facebook account isn't so if they were to use their school email I wonder where we stand legally when it comes to deleting their email when they leave the school... Hmmm

 

It's not uncommon for youngsters to use their school email account, stupid as it may seem. Maybe your email filter needs to divert the facebook ones to spam.

[shadowx]

I think even diverting to spam is too much to be honest, I am tempted to make a rule that just deletes all facebook emails, they shouldn't be using it anyway. We can always setup a facebook-allowed group in case for some reason they need facebook as part of coursework (Media did that once I think... no idea why though)