MySpace Now A Detentionable Offense

It is amazing how things that teens and kids are interested in can be twisted into the media into an evil thing, and as such treated in funny ways by adults, mostly because they don't understand what they are fighting against.

In the USA, the administrators of an Illinois school district have decided that students should be "held accountable" for anything they put online and they are making them sign a statement saying anything they put in the Internet can be grounds for disciplinary action, even if it is not on school time.

I love how Techdirt handles the topic, by mentioning the First Amnedment in the U.S.:

The Supreme Court has been pretty clear that the First Amendment doesn't stop at a school's gates, and there's no question it protects students when they're off school grounds. It looks like the district is calling the statement a "pledge" to make it look voluntary, while enforcing it only on students who participate in extracurriculars would appear to be a way to circumvent the First Amendment by tying it to some voluntary activity. It's a good way to put a chill on students expressing themselves online, a nice nod to Big Brother and a waste of taxpayer resources -- but most of all, it's pointless. What will the threat of discipline do to actually stop these kids from whatever they're doing that the school district doesn't like? And if kids can circumvent school web filters with ease, it's not hard to think they'll be pretty successful at hiding their online activity from school administrators, too.

I am amazed that nothing like this has happened sooner, as popular media twists MySpace and other social networks as an evil dark area on the Internet filled with predators looking for children to take advantage of. Instead of teaching children to be good netizens (Internet Citizens), they just try to block the problem and be all "big brother" about it, that is honestly very sad, and I hope that Canadian schools learn from the bad example in the USA and instead teaches, rather than reprimands.

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MySpace Now A Detentionable Offense

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