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IL School District to Monitor Student Blogs
tinkertim writes "According to a Yahoo article, a school district in Libertyville, IL will be holding students accountable for illegal actions discussed in their MySpace blogs even if such actions in no way involved the school or another student. A spokesperson for the school district was quoted as saying: 'The concept that searching a blog site is an invasion of privacy is almost an oxymoron,' he said. 'It is called the World Wide Web.' Supposedly, no direct monitoring or snooping will be done unless the school receives a report from a concerned parent, community member or other student."
let's say I have a blog, and claim I stole a diamond ring from my neighbor in my blog.
what exactly is the school going to do, that they are going to hold me accountable for what I write in my blog..
arrest me? press charges as an educatorial influence?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Should be no end of fun for the kids, and I rather suspect that the first several lawyers' fees will end up paid by the district too.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
What if someone didn't like a particular student, created a blog claiming to be them, and posted illegal or inappropriate material? The same thing goes for employers checking out potential employees. There's no way to verify people are who they say they are on these sites.
No, I think they will just start posting under each others' names.
It is now apparent what the step before "Profit!!" is: snitch.
the layman's guide to computer science
So if my kid has something to say about his school, I'll help him write it and I'll post it on MY blog. Then the school can deal with me, instead of picking on a kid.
Your logic is flawed. So, if I was still in high school, but I made a Duke Nukem 3d map of my school, the school should be concerned? Well guess what, I in fact made a Duke Nukem 3d map of a layout similar to my school, you know why? Because the building layout made a good map. So not only, under your logic, would I get in trouble, probably get suspended or expelled, I would be labeled as a depressed potential murderer and have a police record. I like that. Even though I had 0 intention of actually acting it out, my life would be ruined, because of your logic. Not only am I not depressive, I have 0 intention on ever murdering anyone, or have I ever. Please, think before typing.
the thing that i found weird was the school considered semi-nudity (guys wearing nothing but tube socks) worse than drugs and alcohol.
Yes, of course they did. Because when you're a kid (under 18) and post naked pictures of yourself online, that "self expression" is called child porn, and predators feed off of that stuff.
That's not to say that it is the school's job (IMO, it's not) to be monitoring the activities of students after hours, but if that is their intention, then kids posting naked pictures of themselves should certainly fall under unacceptable behavior.
That said, were I a parent and my kids were expelled for something they did after hours, after making sure my kids were punished so that they don't begin to think I am on their side for what they did, I would sue the school over a denial of free, public education. I don't pay tax money to have the schools pick and choose who can go to school and who can't based on after school activities. And certainly not because the teachers don't like what they see on MySpace. If you have a personal problem with it, bring it to me. Don't deny my kid an education and hurt their future college prospects just because the idiots decided to talk or brag about stuff (that was probably much more mild in real life, or didn't even happen) on MySpace.