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Facebook Photos Land Eden Prairie Kids in Trouble
slim-t writes "The Star Tribune is reporting that students have been disciplined for photos of them on Facebook. 'Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday.' Is the school right to do this? My opinion is that the students should know not to post pictures of yourself breaking the law."
I'd just like to know what all those administrators are doing cruising Facebook pages looking at the students in their school.
Really, it seems kind of strange that school administrators would find these kinds of things without someone explicitly bringing it to their attention. Don't they have better things to do than sit around and look at pictures of the students? The argument could be made that this is pretty creepy.
Also, if the students are breaking the law outside of school hours, isn't that a matter for the police and not the school?
Time to repeal the drinking age.
This isn't a "rights online" question. It's a natural consequence of the stupid prohibition laws we have. They need to be repealed.
If the only way anyone found out about the drinking was looking at Facebook after the fact, then how was it harmful?
I think that the kids are pretty stupid to post photos of themselves doing illegal things on the Internet, but neither is it the administrators' business to be scouring Facebook for such things. Their job is to deal with things as they're brought to their attention, not be a surveillance force.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
First off, the kid is a liar.
Second of all, if he's freely distributing evidence of himself breaking the law, he's lucky it's just his school that is punishing him.
Third, he's lucky it's just him getting punished and not his parents.
Kid breaks law, gets in trouble. The internet was mildly involved. News at 10:00. Bitching on Slashdot at 9:30.
Knowing several teachers, I have to ask this: is it at all (naively) possible that this admin is doing what he thought best? It seems to me like he's trying to straighten out these kids' lives (at least by his interpretation of life, mind you.)
It's surprising, I know, but some teachers actually care about their students. Not just whether they make the school look good at scholastic meets and football games, not just whether they pass all their (irrelevant) standardized tests. Some teachers care whether or not Joe Quarterback makes it home from prom nite. They actually care whether Suzie Cheerleader makes it home from prom nite unfertilized.
Just a thought. I didn't have the greatest high school experiences myself, but even I know not all school officials are malicious animals prowling 'That Facebook Thing' for whom they may devour.
There is, in fact, some middle ground left to on which to stand.
Notice to all: Timothy has given up the right to Google for people that he meets in life.
Personally, at my school, they have a policy that if you violate a policy outside of school grounds within sight of a school official, or a school official is latter reported of the policy you broke, you will be reprimanded as if you were on school premise. People don't seem to remember that youth are still citizens, and are granted all the rights of the constitution. Schools extend and deploy their power in scary ways, forever under the umbrella "For the Children."
http://www.youthrights.org/
Ok, some may say that this strains reasonable doubt, but. . . let's say you find a picture of a kid on the Internet, and he's holding a Budweiser bottle in his hand, and appears to be drinking from it. . .
The bottle could, maybe, be empty. If the picture makes it obvious it's not empty, it could have water, or lemonade, or ice tea, or Cola, or. . . you get the point, in it. It's *probably* beer, but I wouldn't put it past kids to think it was a cool prank to take an old empty they found somewhere, wash it, then fill it with soda and take pictures.
The point is, a picture of someone drinking from a beer/vodka/whiskey/wine bottle does not PROVE that they were drinking alcohol. I would say it's, on the face of it, impossible to prove someone was imbibing illegal substances based on a photograph. The only way to really prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, in my opinion, is if you could actually test the liquid in the bottle somehow (smell, taste, chemical analysis), or by getting a urine/blood sample from one of the kids in the picture close to the time the picture was taken.
Other types of offenses might be provable from pictures (inappropriate nudity, sexual misconduct, etc), but not underage drinking.
You say you're a nerd who is picked on by the popular jocks. Do I have a plan for you!
1) Take a buddy nerd and sneak into a party where your victim will be (since you're a nerd you obviously weren't invited)
2) Hand the jock a beer, have your friend snap a picture during that second he's holding it (but before you're being pounded with it)
3) Post picture to Facebook using a fake account
4) Wait for jock to be suspended
I'm still trying to figure out how to fit "Profit!" into there as well. Maybe blackmail?
All these "well you shouldn't have posted the picture" posts are forgetting the very common case where someone snaps pictures of a bunch of people and posts them all onto Facebook. It's amazing how fast the camera phones can go off if you do something stupid even for a second at a party.
Almost every single USA law is based on Puritan ideals that started a long time ago. WE firmly believe that restricting people and controlling them is for their own good. Restrict alcohol, hell we even banned it for a few years for incredibly stupid reasons. We are doing the same now for drugs and sex and anything else deemed to be "unholy" or "bad" based on old Puritan ideals from over 300 years ago.
It's the root of our obesity, and almost every other problem that the rest of the world seems to not have.
Problem is , today you are called a nut for questioning the puritanical ideals.
The other problem is the whole point of the article shines light on a bigger problem.. Our children are incredibly stupid. They do things they know are wrong and will get them in trouble if their parents or officials find out about it, and then they publish it with incredible detail in a public forum and then SIGN IT!
The current crop of children here are incredibly stupid.... I blame the use of Corn syrup.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Our thinking seems to be devolved from "what kind of society do we want to live in?" to "what's in it for me, right now?" If doing X makes you "safer" or "happier" right now, it doesn't matter what the consequences are. It's just that we don't seem to be able to reason past the next couple weeks anymore! The lack of outrage over over-prescribed medication, random drug testing, schools spying on students, the sex offender registry, and warrantless wiretaps points to a huge "it doesn't affect me right now, so I don't give a shit" attitude. It's the moral reasoning of a two year old.
If the pictures are posted to a profile with public access, what privacy is there to invade? You can't put these pictures up on display, then get upset that people see them.
Its not the schools job or duty to police after-hours activities.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I guess because I am a teacher and my kids have added me on facebook and I've looked at a few of their photo galleries, then I must be a pedophile. Obviously faculty and administration should have absolutely no interest in getting to know their students.
That's bologna. Grow up.
I'll reference the other anonymous coward above who mentions the pictures were supposedly delivered on CD or other media to school officials, and then add in your mention that some students caught in your example may have lost scholarships in order to come up with the following:
Perhaps some student or parent is behind the gathering of these images and subsequent presentation to school officials.
Given the very competitive nature of college admissions these days perhaps someone is attempting to make the students depicted in the photographs less attractive to scholarship committees.
Or I could be totally off-base in my speculation. Maybe someone just has an axe to grind.
Probably delivered by a kid who got picked on by the popular alcohol chugging kids.
I was in the EP school system from Kindergarten until halfway through 9th Grade... and I recall it was pretty clique-ish and people were particularly nasty and cruel to other kids.
Most people might say it's the same in every high school, but I went to 3 high schools my freshman year (EPHS inclusive). And the high school in Connecticut and especially the high school in Arizona were a LOT nicer in terms of students' attitudes and treatment of other students.
Sounds like revenge!
I'm looking for which part of this would infringe student rights...
I love my sig.
Oh yeah, it took a LONG time with the district's lawyers to make sure things were kosher. There's nothing wrong with logging all the shit they did. Every parent signed an agreement stating all computer activity was logged, every login was prompted by a legalese message stating all activity was subject to logging.
Not that I'm all bonered up about annihilating a kid's future because he/she did some stupid shit while they were young, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Using school equipment to post pictures of highly illegal exploits is beyond that line.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
In my case, it's possible but not probable. It would have taken quite an effort to generate the leagues of information (mostly photos) we managed to gather before the hammer fell on these kids. These were very explicit images of people doing very dumb things. Not only that, but the user accounts matched and everything. It would have been more work than just earning the scholarship justly, I'll tell you that. We were very thorough, lawsuits are not good PR, especially right before a referendum.
In the case from the article, that could be certainly be true. I'm glad I'm no longer in school and that when I was I didn't give a rusty rat fuck about scholarships or any of that. It's far too cutthroat for me.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
You aren't acting in an official capacity as a school administrator though. You're making friends with your students.
Befriending your students is a good thing. The problem here is that some do-gooder snitch was cruising Facebook for pictures of students doing things they shouldn't and turned them into the administration, who made like good little fascists and punished said students for things that happened off campus, which should be firmly outside the jurisdiction of the school administration but unfortunately is not.
If you were to express concern to one of your students over a picture they posted of themselves drinking, I would consider you a good person who I want teaching the next generation. What we have here is somebody who for whatever reason got a bunch of kids in trouble with an "authority" who should be spending his time (and our money) dealing with problems on his own campus.
The world can be wrong today for once.
My wife and I don't drink or smoke and never really have aside from the occasional toast at a wedding or a new year sparty. Still this is too draconian. What about communion at church? They can't even be present? They can see their uncle when he has a lit cigarette? I couldn't allow them to toast at new years?
Each new years my folks use to let me and my brothers have a sip of wine and made us eat sour kraut for luck. It was a tradition. (I haven't eaten kraut since. My luck has been fine.) My wife is Italian enough that we eat spaghetti with the secret family meatball recipe at Christmas. Her family makes all sort of other Italian dishes and also finds a glass of wine to be obligatory. The school would tell me my kids can't go to the Christmas dinner at Great Grandma's? That would be another impact that the school has no right to impose.
Perhaps I need to start having words with the school now, before my kids reach high school. And if they confirm this and are not flexible to my wishes for my children, then my lawyer will have to start having words with someone.
So much for that idea of "the punishment should fit the crime". Hmm, what you are saying or portraying is disagreeable
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
That's not proof. I know it's unlikely, but unlikely is not how the law works.
The burden of proof in a misdemeanor case for underage drinking is beyond a reasonable doubt. If you saw a photo with a room full of people drinking out of cans and bottles clearly labeled as containing alcohol, in what appeared to be a party setting, what would you think? I think it would take an effort of willful blindness to buy the notion that they weren't drinking alcoholic beverages.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
i find it curious how many people reply as if breaking the law is 'wrong' a priori.
it seems to me that underage drinking can be stupid, but it's not wrong in and of itself. someone can do wrong while intoxicated, but it isn't the drinking that causes it. it's bad judgement. punishing kids for imitating the socially acceptable partying habits of people ~5-6 years their senior seems pretty hypcritical.
if the kids drove cars around, that's another story. but the 'wrong' would be having driven while intoxicated which actually endangers others' lives. but photos of kids being stupid to impress their friends?
laws obeyed for the sake of obeying a law doesn't reveal anything about the moral maturity or ethical reasoning of a person. in fact, it reveals that one is a moral midget who follows rules for their own sake.
kids do stupid things; adults do stupid things. hopefully we learn from them. when that stupid thing trespasses another's wishes it becomes a moral issue.
arre': let's remember - to participate in student athletics in Minnesota, EVERY student must sign a pledge to entirely abstain from alcohol or tobacco as a student athlete, and (as I recall, it was 20 years ago I was in EPHS) even to avoid being PRESENT at such activities. Say what you want about the motivation behind the rule, the simple fact is that every one of them signed such a promise and are now blatantly proved to be breaking it. Busted.
the simple fact is that every one of them was co-erced into signing such a promise.
Fixed it for you.
Seriously. Take another look at what you just wrote. You're basically saying that you KNOW they signed it because they have no choice in the matter if they want to participate in school.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Having a drink = "highly illegal exploits"
You must be american.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Welcome to America. Where we try to preserve a child's innocence until they are 30 years old, or married.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
LOL you sure got me! That's right! Were you there, too? You came all the way from Bussum, The Netherlands to help us pour through all the documentation, the photos, interview the kids, and deal with the cops? No? You don't say! Well then how'd you know it was only alcohol? Oh wait, it had nothing to do with alcohol and you're a stupid Eurotrash asshole. Nevermind.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Having a drink = "highly illegal exploits"
You must be american.
The reasonableness of drink laws aside, every culture has norms or laws that others find odd.
For example, the German's outlaw NAZI symbols - understandable given their history but still odd to others who view free speech as important.
Godwin's Law.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
When Americans (as a society) decided that the schools should shoulder the burden of raising their kids and teaching them morals and values, the schools gained the right to punish students for anything they do anytime, anywhere. Now I realize that, of course, that applies to no one here, but on the whole it is true. We have made the school systems in educators, parents, and to a limited extent law enforcement.
Welcome to America in the 21st century.
In most, if not all, jurisdictions in America, there are various classes of felonies and misdemeanors. For instance, a class A felony is a "higher" charge than a class D misdemeanor. By "highly", I simply meant higher up the chart, nothing else.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I'm glad someone got some use out of my post. Certainly there are less than desirable aspects of America. But I don't need some holier-than-thou European to point them out, especially when it's based on some fictional account of events he/she invented in their head and not relevant to the story in any manner. I know plenty of great Europeans, I work with them all day. That said, there's plenty of shitty ones too. It's not like America has a monopoly on assholes.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
The same cannot be said of a 16 (or 18) year old who gets their drivers license and to celebrate, gets drunk and goes driving.
This is true, but it strikes me as odd that they solve this by having the drinking age higher, not the driving age.
I mean, driving is still a risk even if you aren't drunk, whilst this way of doing things unfairly affects under 21s who don't drive. It's also surely more likely that an under 21 driver might get hold of some alcohol, compared with an under 21 who can legally drink then randomly deciding to find someone else's car and illegally go for a drive...
And I don't know, but to me, being able to drink - something which can be done even in private - seems like a more fundamental right than being able to drive a potentially dangerous vehicle around on public roads at life-threatening speeds... But I guess given the taboo of drugs in general, not many agree with me.
"Disagreeable" is a word of many meanings. Let's be more specific: If you break the law, there are consequences. If you take pride in having broken the law, there are additional consequences. Also, if you show your appreciation for people who are giving you free money to go to college by speaking negatively about them at every turn, you may end up forfeiting that free money. Why is this so difficult to deal with? Are we really such an entitlement society that our responsibility for our actions ends the minute someone says that one of the consequences will be forfeiture of the free money we feel entitled to?