12-year-old sues school district over Facebook profile search
news.cnet.com
news.cnet.com
A friend and I started a Facebook group called "Sleeping students of GHS" and we had people send in pictures to an email address I created and we'd upload them to the group page. Which was quite interesting because we couldn't be held responsible for actually taking the pictures.
Well the group went viral in a matter of a few days, first a hundred, then a few hundred, then 2-3k. And in a relatively small southern town, around 13k people, that's a pretty big deal.
It was crazy. I felt like Julian Assange for a couple weeks. Nervously posting things and worried about the school big dogs hunting me down. (of course this wasn't anything like WL, but the same idea.) Parents were starting to be like, "Wait, why are these students sleeping? What are the teachers doing about this?" and this in turn caused a big uproar in the school. Schools hate bad publicity. The next day I get called into the office and a couple assistant principals and a police officer were like, "Do you have permission from all these students parents to upload these pictures?" and I said, "No. I didn't think you needed it." They in turn told me that the school was liable for a law suit, yada yada, and that I need to delete it.
They had me login to my account in front of them and delete it. THIS WAS MY BIGGEST MISTAKE. Damn it. I was furious with myself afterwards. Lesson learned I suppose. It didn't take long for an outsider to the school to approach me and make another joint account. That way if it's outside the school they can't do anything.
At this point local news agencies were calling me and emailing me asking to interview. It was on the front page of newspapers. I learned that it is indeed not illegal to take pictures of minors in a public place and the school was just BS'ing me to get me to delete it. I was a little scared in that office. I was in contact with the ACLU and a digital rights lawyer in San Francisco, just in case they issued any kind of punishment toward me.
It went on for a couple more weeks, we even had tshirts made, and then bam, Facebook shuts it down. No notice, no warning, just bam. We get an email saying "Your page was against our ToS, sorry" and that was that. It all ended in a haze. To this day I wonder why Facebook shut it down. I tried contacting them but to no avail.
From my perspective it was quite useful. I myself sucked at remembering tests (because I was on here too much) and she knew it, she would just say "hey, don't forget our test tomorrow :)" and that helped me. She didn't have to do that but it was a nice gesture and it helped me remember.
Try being a teacher. Then read that article from the perspective of the educator and it reads completely differently.
When parents freak out over sex offenders being allowed to live in their neighbour hood near their children (when the majority of sex offenders committed offences against adults, meaning the kids should be worried about mommy getting raped, not mommy worrying about her kids), do you really want to be known as the pervert in the school board tracking all the prepubescent girls.
The real problem is that everyone thinks that if we all just use common sense, and be nice to each other, it'll be ok, but that doesn't get us very far. If some kid slanders someone else, for example, how should it be dealt with? You don't have complete freedom to say anything you want about someone else.
...I guess the short of it is that if you don't want the school to handle the problem, be very specific about how the problems should be dealt with, otherwise when my personal freedom and yours clash, we're going to have a mess. Don't just wave the flag and cry "freedom!"
[Update]
I got down voted immediately. Thought I might. :-) Was it the wave the flag and cry freedom part, or do people think they have complete personal freedom? Yeah, I'm trying to stick a few simple-minded people in the eye. Anyway, people really need to think beyond the simple "I don't like it when this happens..." If you can't provide the answers to a problem, someone else will do it for you.
K-12 education is such a mess. My kids go to quite good public school, and even there, it is a joke the control they think have. Anybody know if it is a violation of the 1st Ammendment to prohibit kids from dying their hair (serious question)? As a kid who had blue hair, that prohibition drives me nuts!
1. http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12...
Now, I'm not saying what is right or wrong here. I'm simply asking what people think should be done. How do people want it to be handled.
Also, shouldn't Facebook be deleting her account? She's only 12, and you need to legally be 13.
If she said something about somebody else in a public way (yes, your "friends" probably count as public), the person being spoken about has multiple options:
1. Suck it up. People say mean things; get over it. (Side note: my guess is this whole case boils down to "contempt of cop", that horrible crime of not showing a person who has authority over you enough respect). Students don't check free speech at the gates and especially don't at home.
2. Contact FaceBook about a violation of its terms. FB could delete said post. I think FB's 13 year old policy is stupid (yes, the underlying law is also stupid, but FB takes the stupidity to new heights), but it is their policy. The principal could have just gotten the account nuked.
3. For a public posting, involve the parents. It is, you know, their job to raise their kid. If a parent decides they value freedom of speech over respect of authority, well, see #1 above or #4 below.
4. If the comment is truly libelous (and, remember, to prove libel you have to show harm was done[1]), you always have redress in the courts. But, again, the inequality in the relationship means the principal doesn't have to bother with that.
We want adults who question their leaders, yet our schools (including, sadly, many colleges. Just look at what happened at Berkeley) do everything they can to crush any leadership questioning. Is it any surprise most adults don't care about what their leaders do? They have been trained from a very early age that they have no control over "the man". Why would that change after college?
That classic example is very often misunderstood to describe a limitation on free speech. It doesn't. The government can not forbid you from shouting fire in a crowded theatre - but free speech does not come with indemnity: You are responsible for the consequences of your actions, including your speech. If other people in good faith reacts to your (in bad faith) shouting and get hurt, you are liable. If the theatre owner looses revenue from your shouting, you are liable. But you have every right to shout it.
Parents - They should parent. In the modern times that means educating children about the internet and expected behavior online. Teach your kids about privacy settings. If needed, regulate access to digital devices. I'm sure (most) 13 year olds aren't buying their own cell phones, computers and internet access.
Kids are rough on each other, but they've always been rough on each other. The only difference now is that its a larger audience and more to interact with.
Kids need to know that they can simply 'opt out' if they want to and stuff gets too socially complex. They don't need to have a Facebook profile that's 100% public to every other kid in school. They could have a very locked and and private profile, or no profile at all.
School has no business checking people's private things though. Parents may have some rights but I'd also say children have an expectation for privacy.
Facebook has to provide its users (i.e. kids and their parents) with working tools that can prevent bullying. 'Report Abuse' links that work, for example. It should not be necessary for schools to have complete access to their students' accounts.
> When kids get foul with each other, what do the
> parents do?
Parents should "do" whatever they would normally do in communicating with or disciplining their children.
On a different note, I find it quite ironic that Facebook forbids children under 13 from opening accounts, while encouraging behavior ("I like this!") most suitable for their age spectrum.
Or at least if they judged you from what was written in your blog or something like that.
I can't imagine what these "facts" are, but I will reserve judgement until I've heard them.
There is no way anyone could coerce me to hand something over like that (and I don't even use Facebook much!)
On a related note, maybe the people who deserve to be reported are the likes of Justin Bieber. See Bieber tweets a phone number, except the last digit. Real people driven mad http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3690118
I hope to see the day when every headline [subject] sues [government entity] over [grievance] parses to something other than [subject] sues taxpayers over [grievance]
The 12 year old is the plaintiff, not the parents. The lawyer may have thought she had a good enough case to hold billing, and may have even held disbursements (although more likely the parents agreed to pay for disbursements for the case).