Let’s Face(book) some Facts

This past week in Toronto, five elementary school students were disciplined for alleged "cyber bullying" of some of their teachers. As a result, they will not be allowed to participate in the planned end-of-year class trip to Montreal.

The Grade 8 students posted inappropriate and derogatory remarks about teachers on the Internet, specifically on the popular social networking site "Facebook." One of the boys, Bram Koch, posted a comment stating that he had witnessed one teacher masturbating in the classroom.

The boy has stated that he did not intend any harm by his remarks, and that he was just joking around with his friends. (I do wonder how he, his friends, and their parents, would feel if the comments had been made about them?)

Over the past several months a number of students in the Toronto area, ranging from Grades 8 through 11, have been disciplined over comments they have posted on Facebook, all of who had posted derogatory remarks about teachers and fellow students. Remarks included people being accused of racism and of being paedophiles. Similar incidents were reported in Quebec in past weeks.

This is not the first time Internet sites have been at the centre of such controversy. Over the past few years there have been accounts of young teens being lured into meeting adults, sometimes with dire outcomes, through the popular Internet site MySpace™. There have also been similar incidents reported involving various online instant-messaging (chat room) services.

At the time, many people were blaming the websites themselves for permitting this sort of nefarious activity to take place. This time there seems to be less inclination to blame the sites. However, as demonstrated by the comments of David Koch, father of Bram, the reality of Internet communication is not fully understood.

While admitting his sons actions were inappropriate, Koch nonetheless claims the school has invaded his "property" by looking at what his son wrote.

He was sitting at home in the basement. Now that, as far as I'm concerned, is my turf. Now when he goes on the Internet, yes, it's arguable that a part of him is out there. But if that's the case, then a part of school went into my house, and the moment they did that, they crossed a boundary.¹

He also attempts to excuse his son’s behaviour by saying "he's only 14 years old."

I have two problems with his position.

Firstly, I believe part of his "role" ought to have been to ensure that his son was given clear expectations regarding his online behaviour, as well as ensuring that his son understood the nature of Internet communication and its inherent dangers. Perhaps he did not understand this himself, which leads to my second problem.

He argues that the school essentially entered into his house, but this is not the case. His son's comments were posted on the Internet.

While he may have typed the comments on his home computer, they do not reside there. The comments are transmitted to a remote server and are made available to anyone who wishes to read them. It would be no different than painting his comments onto a banner and hanging it out in the yard for passers-by to read, or painting them onto a billboard on the side of the highway.

Facebook allows users to create a group to which others may be invited to join. The group can be designated as "public," meaning anyone can join, or "private," meaning users must apply to join and be approved by the person who created the group.

What the younger Koch may have failed to understand was that while membership in the group may be restricted, the comments posted by group members are still readily accessible by anyone.

Young people, their parents, and indeed all Internet users would do well to learn from this incident. The Internet is not private. While some sites may offer a higher degree of privacy than others, that privacy is not absolute.

A good rule of thumb is never to post anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t be willing to stand in the town square and shout out loud.

Neither the Internet itself nor any of the social-networking sites are inherently bad. They are only tools, which if used properly can provide information, communication, entertainment, and education. However, when used inappropriately they can have unintended and sometimes drastic consequences.

What started out as a joke between friends snowballed into an issue that received national media attention, and resulted in hard feelings, and denied a group of students the chance to join their classmates on their end-of-year trip.

And that is probably the most important lesson to glean from this latest incident: our actions always have consequences, and that with the right to "freedom of speech" comes the duty to use that right responsibly.

But, that’s just my opinion.



¹ Father: school too harsh on son for online remarks, toronto.ctv.ca
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