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.

Comments

Your rights do not apply at School

[Children.of.the.Kron]

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."

Re:Isn't it easy?

[C0rinthian]

I wouldn't necessarily be too keen about my own child drinking under age, but I wouldn't be at all happy about his invasion of privacy either - I'd consider that stalking.

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.

Re:Don't they have anything better to do?

[EightBits]

You're all missing the point. The reason the school administrators are punishing the kids instead of reporting them to the police is to avoid giving (or adding to) the kids' criminal records. Kids do all kinds of things and sometimes these things are illegal. In this case, these kids may have been doing something illegal. The administrators are trying to punish the kids so they learn not to do it again.

What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you? Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?

Consider the options. "You take the punishment we are dishing out or we turn these photos over to the police. Which do you prefer?" Most kids will take the school's punishment and they would be right and smart to do so. The school may or may not be dishing out appropriate punishment and that needs to be figured out. But they are at least trying to do the best thing for these kids and that is to discipline the kids without the extreme of getting the police involved.

There will be some who decide to not post their photos on facebook/myspace/etc... But most will still take pictures and that's still a liability. The school wants them to just not do these things in the first place. While they can't control people like that, they can influence and that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is the whole damn point of punishment.

Re:Don't they have anything better to do?

[uniquename72]

he reason the school administrators are punishing the kids instead of reporting them to the police is to avoid giving (or adding to) the kids' criminal records. Incorrect. Guess what the police would do if they obtained pics of these underaged kids drinking? Absolutely nothing, because it would be impossible to prove that what's in those containers is alcohol.

As others have said, this all has to do with one thing: power. It's a lot easier to control kids than it is to teach them, so that's what schools do.

Fucking pathetic.