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Students Suspended, Expelled Over Facebook Posts
An anonymous reader writes "Two students have been suspended, and one student has been expelled, over negative Facebook postings they made about a teacher. The individuals are in seventh grade at Chapel Hill Middle School, meaning they are either 12 or 13 years old, according. The children are accused of violating a portion of the school code that is a "level one" offense, the worst possible: 'Falsifying, misrepresenting, omitting, or erroneously reporting' allegations of inappropriate behavior by a school employee toward a student."
"...We’ll definitely be hearing more about this one as Facebook and other social networks continue to grow in popularity."
Grow in popularity? Uh, no, I doubt it. This is yet another nail in the liability coffin that is Facebook.
Not long ago I read how Facebook is being used to decide who should be selected to sit on a jury, with potential jurors being "coherced" into befriending the court in exchange for free wi-fi service in the courtroom, allowing the court to "see all".
Also not long ago, I read how Facebook is responsible for quite an alarming number of cases of infidelity, leading to divorce, with divorce lawyers practically drooling over getting their hands in their opponents juicy Facebook tidbits.
Schools. Potential employers. Current employers. What's next, will Military background investigations be done from an office chair instead of getting out in the field and actually interviewing someone, relying on social network "profiling" instead?
As more and more people realize that social networking is a liability in their lives, they'll realize it's not worth it.
Then again, with the air of ignorance around the law these days, maybe people won't give a shit until they have to hire a lawyer to defend what they've posted. Free speech...isn't free.
Maybe next time they can record audio/video of said allegations. Wouldn't be the 1st time that would show the kids were right on their claims. Then again if it's just audio they could still claim its falsifying the teachers voice or something of those lines of thought.
Furthermore, if it is more than one kid claiming bad behaviour from the teacher part, i believe the chances of being true claims are quite higher.
It's people like you who make the draconian decision by the school necessary.
People's lives have been destroyed by false accusations. Hysterical parents who should never have had children, greedy lawyers, those are worse than pedophiles, because they can cause more harm to more people.
The punishment against a false accusation should be at least as severe as the punishment against the crime itself.
Had the kids posted opinions - IE: "My teacher sucks" - No biggie, and totally protected.
Instead, they posted factual allegations.
"My teacher is a pedo/rapist" is Libel, which is not protected, and clearly actionable.
It also has consequences. Erroneous accusations like that ruin careers, and send people to jail. A few hundred years ago it was "Witch, Witch!" Today it's "Pedo, Pedo!"
If you want to see scary, look at the OP comments - "That teacher should be investigated, the cops should be all over his house!" is the meme there.
Finally, for those saying "not the school's place to get involved." Actually, it is - the school has standing to take unilateral action here in order to protect itself and its employee. Period.These posts were retaliation for official acts. Left unaddressed at the institutional level, it becomes an effective method of blackmail. Yeah, the teacher can sue too, but then you've got the boatload of issues that come with litigation that I for one would never want to entertain. For a deterrent to be effective, it has to be Cost Effective. Cheap harms are best countered by cheap deterrents, otherwise students have an incentive to hedge, and kids are intuitively good at gaming incentive structures. Besides, I can just hear the whining now -
"Teacher sues for being called a pedo on the internet."
Comments:
Litigious bastard, he's probably a pedo.
Why's everybody suing all the time.
etc, etc
You are missing a big point here. Saying somebody is a pedophile or rapist in ANY public forum whether it be the internet or a posting on the bulletin board at the local grocery store, is a VERY serious accusation that can cause lasting repercussions for the person. If that person happens to be a teacher it makes it greatly more amplified. The internet hasn't changed that, just made it easier to spread the word.
Something else the internet does is remove a lot of plausible deniability. If you scribble it on a bathroom stall wall, it's much less likely to come back to bite you - and is also less likely to be taken seriously because well, it's anonymous. If you post it on your password protected facebook wall? Prepare for the pain train.
While I'm generally on the side of freedom of speech and lack of censorship on the internet, there are still some lines that can be crossed. This is one of them. And these kids need a lesson in what not to say to blow off steam about a teacher or your school.
Maybe in North Korea or China. In America something like this is at most a civil tort of libel
It is never safe to generalize about U.S. state law.
Colorado is one of 17 states with a criminal libel statute, which is different from the civil libel laws in all 50 states that allow victims of allegedly defamatory statements to seek compensation from speakers. Criminal libel laws allow the state to fine or imprison speakers of defamatory statements.
Former high school student pleads guilty to criminal libel [2006]