Illinois Highschool Will Monitor Myspace

Josh — Wed, 24 May 2006 09:23:09 EDT

My wife is a counselor and psychotherapist working at a school, and I could understand the appeal--students are often willing to post more candidly and personally on their blogs and social networking sites that they would in conversation with an adult. Why then do so many colleges and universities have explicit rules forbidding student affairs staff from participating in sites like FaceBook or MySpace? Paradoxically, it is precisely because of student candor. If a student were to post, say, morbid poetry and then attempt suicide and it were found that school employees had read the poetry and did not act, the school might be held liable. But students post lots of morbid or disturbing work but engage in comparatively little self-injurious behavior. And there's no way even a highly trained professional, like my wife, could separate the dangerous from the banal. Parents and students interviewed seemed most upset about the invasion of privacy, the inappropriateness of holding students responsible for activities outside of school, and for usurping parental responsibility. I hope that the school board has also considered their liability if students and their families come to expect the monitoring?

Josh

Illinois Highschool Will Monitor Myspace

CorporationsAreAwesome — Tue, 23 May 2006 18:35:54 EDT

One parent who understands her job. Now what about the other 50 million?

CorporationsAreAwesome

Illinois Highschool Will Monitor Myspace - Consumerist Comments

Illinois Highschool Will Monitor Myspace

Illinois Highschool Will Monitor Myspace