How can I find out who has set up a hate facebook group?

[nanomouse]

My daughter is in trouble in school for reportedly setting up a teacher hate group (you know the kind of stuff - I hate Mr....) on Facebook. She says she did not, she inadvertently joined the group, the adminstrator left and put her in as the administrator, so it looks like she set it up but she maintains she did not. The school have deleted the site so I can't see for myself. I know nothing about Facebook really (am going to learn fast now) and want to know if there is a way of finding out who set up the group so I can be sure what I am dealing with here.

This happens at my ds' school all the time.

I am beginning to wonder how they have the time to police it or is a special digital media person employed fulltime.

If the group has been deleted you will have no way of finding out who had anything to do with it but if you search for the school's name you will probably find lots of groups within the school.

It is obviously unfair that she got the blame for setting the group up and the only way to prove she didn't would be to contact Facebook directly unfortunately they are more than a little sluggish with that sort of thing. However that said many schools do not hugely differentiate between having joined or set up a group as they want to make the point that if you are the target of bullying you don't differentiate between the ring leader of abuse and those just joining in all they see is a bunch of people attacking them.

A lot of this I think is coming from Safeguarding but there is also the fact that schools are finally catching up on cyberbullying.

Your daughter (and the school as a whole) should have been warned of the policy on cyberbullying which would generally be zero-tolerance with police involvement if applicable in which case she should have known not to join the group. If not then it could be they are launching an initiative and that she is being made an example of.

It is worth contacting Facebook all the same and explaining what it is you want to know but don't hold your breath. As for dealing with the school you can only explain your position and ask that they investigate thoroughly interviewing all members of the group to get to the bottom of it.