Fair? Unfair? Legal? Illegal?


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"Second story happened last year, where a student made a seperate Facebook account, and went on to make a Facebook group against a particular student. He did this in his own time, from the comfort of his own home. He was called in and threatened with suspension stating "yeah, we scanned the ip address and it pointed back to your house. there is no denying it, we need you to take it down" Facebook, does not give out these type of information just easily, and even more so in 48 hours."

Being a student justifies this how?

Because you're attacking another student at the school. If I went and beat up someone I work with outside of work, it would still have repercussions at my place of employment. Get over it and quit whining about everything. The big 'ol FBI isn't going to swoop down and take people away. If you don't want these problems surfacing, don't use myspace/facebook.

They could be bluffing too. They like to play like they're the cops in some kind of interrogation room. There's more serious things going on at public schools than that, and public school security, at least at my school, was a joke.

I'd always played with the idea of using a portable bit torrent and downloading to a USB via a library computer with that generic logon lol

The FBI doesn't want to bother dealing with Cyberbullying. When two students are involved then it is very much within the mandate of the school board. Schools are supposed to do more than issue tests and assignments, they are supposed to produce mature young adults.

it's perfectly fair and it's the kids own damn fault if he doesn't make his profile private. If he thought to make his profile for friends only his principal couldn't do see anything and thus couldn't report any thing. People should start to take more responsiblity for their privacy.

:blink: That's not right at all. No one has the right to invade your privacy, especially your VP. Schools shouldn't care about anything that happens outside of school.
Because he was in school gave the teacher the right to log into his account and change it? bull****! A hacker would go down if he was caught.

Yes.

There's always a usage policy students are required to read and sign and return stating that the computers at the school are property of the school, and that the student will only use the computer for school related work, not personal fun. It would be like a kid stashing marijuana in his locker; with the locker being school property, school staff are well within their rights to go into the locker without that kid's permission to find out.

Or think of it this way: a friend comes over and uses your computer while you watch tv, then leaves. You log into your computer later that night and see that he's left Limewire open, and, after looking around a little bit, you find that he's been downloading music illegally. You are well within your right to report him.

You guys shouldn't be checking your myspace and facebook while you're at school, anyways. You have plenty of time to play around with that crap when you get home-- you'll be fine if you go 6 hours without checking it.

That being said, I agree that a VP checking every student's myspace is going a bit too far. What kids do outside of school is theirs and their parent's business. It's not up to the school to step into a parent's domain and punish a child for what they do outside of school.

-Emily

Well if there are more than a 100 students I don't believe that this person is really going to check every page, and I certainly don't believe he is going to check private pages.

I think it's just one of the BS empty threats schools give you to remind you not to take your teachers seriously. He's trying to scare you all in an attempt to stop any bullying.

Even if he does start looking at profiles - if they are public then there is nothing wrong with that. If they are private, I think you should email MySpace and tell them someone is threatening to hack your account and view your personal details. If he can do it, anyone can, so complain to MySpace.

I think schools have a responsibility to do something if they discover bad behaviour outside of school, if it affects students during school. Otherwise they should keep out of it.

I have always thought that school's "sphere of influence" extends well beyond its fences. As someone pointed out,

incidents outside of work or school can lead to minor/major repercussions elsewhere. While I agree with Persephone,

the threat is likely an empty one to help prevent any possible bullying. I would hope that the VP has better things

to attend to like dress codes, fighting on property, vandalism, faculty performance, etc than what kids have on their

myspace.

Are we all forgetting something here? How exactly is he going to FIND all these MySpace profiles? I'm sure that after hearing something like that, students would just say 'Oh, I don't have a MySpace.' or something. [On a side note, I don't use MySpace, and don't think I ever have, so correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if you can search people by real name, or whatever. Then again, do most people post their real names on MySpace?]

Aside from that, I think it's perfectly legal to view content on the internet. If it's private though, I don't think 'breaking in' or hacking into said content is right.

In MySpace you can put your first and last name, but those aren't visible for all to see. Your display name is what everybody sees. People who know you can search using either one though, which IMO is very useful since the display name can be anything.

Even so, searching with somebody's real name is still very hard to do unless they have a more unique name than most.

Are we all forgetting something here? How exactly is he going to FIND all these MySpace profiles? I'm sure that after hearing something like that, students would just say 'Oh, I don't have a MySpace.' or something. [On a side note, I don't use MySpace, and don't think I ever have, so correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know if you can search people by real name, or whatever. Then again, do most people post their real names on MySpace?]

Aside from that, I think it's perfectly legal to view content on the internet. If it's private though, I don't think 'breaking in' or hacking into said content is right.

Because students all add themselves to the school group.

And to the people that think its a empty threat.... one of the deputy Principal's at my school checks them all the time and contacts parents if there's certain content in them.

not legal

I mean what do drunken photos have to do with bullying?? This should be against the law, just because it would allow parents to pry in on their childrens lives, and any cyber bullying would just be shifted onto mobile phones and other communications media... BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING <O> and the next thing you know, they'll be wearing ID cards with GPS locator thingies inside them <O> [someone really needs to make a "Big Brother-eye" emoticon!!)

It's not an empty thread. Our VP just stands around during passing period, and patrol the halls during class time. And bullying goes on so much at our school, but they know not to snitch, and most staff don't even care. It's a part of growing up. Just like sex and drinking. It happens.

How can he prove it?... Photos can lie... For example-- Pouring Alcohol into a coke- (Rum and Coke)--- can be hid in a coke bottle... or for another example- was there anything in the can? And most people who drink publicly pour the alcohol into a solo cup anyhow.

Now as far as the cyber-bullying -- That is generally not tolerated and is usually people get caught by by sending a lot of emails with keywords when that is enabled. (words like kill-hurt-shoot- like that) or by and or on the persons blogs.

Though depends on how you go about it... it could be legal but then again there are ways of disproving.

Unless he catches you with the can full of beer. Then again it is could be that someone else who does not like you turns you in.

Just my 2 cents to help make the 8,000,000.

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