Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages

from the wow dept

Remember the story recently about how Bozeman, Montana was asking all applicants for city jobs to hand over their social networking passwords so city officials could log into their accounts? After some widespread complaints, the city smartly backed down, but apparently they're not the only ones demanding passwords. CitMediaLaw points us to a lawsuit filed in Mississippi, concerning a high school student who turned over her Facebook password at the demand of a teacher at the school. The teacher proceeded to log into her account, read her private messages and then send them around to others at the school, causing a lot of problems for the girl.

Apparently, the teacher had originally demanded usernames and passwords to Facebook from a bunch of students to see if they were doing anything illegal (drugs, drinking, etc.), which is already pretty questionable from a privacy standpoint (and violates Facebooks' terms of service). But to then use the contents of private communication to publicly humiliate the girl and punish her for her private messages seems to go way beyond what is both right and legal. Other students at the school had quickly deleted their Facebook profiles when the teacher demanded their passwords, but this girl chose not to, but certainly never expected what followed. It's amazing that any teacher would think that they have a right to demand access to private social networking accounts and then to make use of the content of private messages in that manner.

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MPAA Shows How Teachers Should Record Movies By Camcording Their TVs

from the ok-then... dept

As you probably know, every three years, the Librarian of Congress gets to review requests for special "exemptions" to the DMCA. It's a ritual every three years, and every three years most people hoping to get rid of some of the worst abuses of the DMCA are disappointed. Back in 2003 very few exemptions were issued, and in 2006 it basically extended the exemptions and added a few very, very narrowly defined and specific exemptions -- and did nothing for consumers. This year, the process is going on again with a variety of requests for exemptions.

But, of course, the process also has some requests in the other direction as well... The entertainment industry, for example, would like fewer examples. Kevin alerts us to some video of a recent hearing, where the MPAA actually (you have to see it to believe it) demonstrates how to use a camcorder to videotape a movie off a TV:

Why would the MPAA show this? Because it wants to remove the (very narrow) exemptions that were granted in 2006 to media professors who wanted to copy clips of movies from DVDs for the purpose of education. But the MPAA wants the Library of Congress to take away that exemption, and is using this demonstration to show that a media professor shouldn't need to break DRM on DVDs, when they can go through the cumbersome process of recording the DVD via the "analog hole" of playing it on a TV and capturing it with a video camera.

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How Is It Cyberbullying When Students Are Exposing Teacher Abuses?

from the trying-to-understand... dept

Over in the Czech Republic, the education ministry has drawn up "guidelines" for how schools can deal with "cyberbullies" and just like other recent stories, it's the teachers who are afraid of being bullied more than other students. But, as you read the details, it sounds that what the teachers define as "cyberbullying" is actually something more like "students exposing teacher abuses." We've seen this before. A school district in the US punished students for recording a teacher's outburst, and in another case, a student was suspended for filming the principal smoking on school grounds -- against regulations. In this case, the rules against cyberbullying came after students uploaded a video of a teacher hitting a kid. It's difficult to see how that's cyberbullying at all. It sounds like the students were effectively exposing a teacher abusing his position. Yet, the response, again, is to figure out a way to blame the kids and make it more difficult for them to expose teachers acting badly.

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Student Sues School For Suspending Her Over Facebook Group

from the free-speech-or-cyberbullying dept

Last year, we pointed out that teachers are increasingly complaining that students are cyberbullying not each other... but the teachers themselves. Of course, in a lot of cases these seem overblown. Yet, that hasn't stopped some teachers from arguing that cyberbullying should be a criminal offense. Yet, when teachers overreact and consider just about any criticism "cyberbullying" you're going to run into problems. Take, for example, the case of Katherine Evans. As a high school student who didn't much like her English teacher, she created a Facebook group called "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met!" That doesn't seem like cyberbullying. That seems like garden variety student-bitching-about-teacher. Even worse, Evans' fellow students told her it was a stupid group, and expressed support for the teacher, such that Evans decided to take down the group herself

But, the school apparently felt this was a big problem, claiming that this was cyberbullying harassment and "disruptive behavior." It suspended Evans for three days and pulled her out of various advanced placement classes. Now, Evans is suing the school for violating her free speech rights. As the Wired article notes, there have been lawsuits about free speech in school in the past, but the internet makes the issues a bit different here. Either way, it's quite difficult to see how the school can claim that such a group is actually cyberbullying, and punishing the girl for venting hardly seems like a reasonable response (especially for an issue that was dealt with by other students in a reasonable manner). What is this world coming to when people can't take the slightest criticism and insist that it's somehow "cyberbullying" that requires punishment or discipline?

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Judge Says School Can Suspend Student For Fake MySpace Page Of Principal

from the questionable-reading-of-the-legal-tea-leaves dept

Just about a month ago we wrote about a principal losing a lawsuit against some students for posting a fake MySpace page pretending to be the principal. However, in a different case, a court has ruled that a school has every right to suspend students for creating a fake MySpace page of a principal. The two cases are different in a few ways, as the first one involved the principal suing the student, rather than just suspending the student. That said, the ruling by the court in this case seems problematic, and I'd be surprised if it was upheld on appeal (assuming the student appeals). The Supreme Court's famous Tinker v. Des Moines case established the precedent that schools can't punish students for protected free speech -- especially if that speech takes place off of the school campus. The court said that other Supreme Court rulings applied over Tinker, but both of the cases it cites in support involve disruptive actions at school events. A MySpace page created at home doesn't seem to qualify. Either way, if the principal's intent was to get the pages hidden so people didn't talk about them, this resulting lawsuit seems to have created the opposite situation.

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Now Canadian Teachers Want Cyberbullying To Be A Criminal Offense

from the overreact-much? dept

At some point, people need to realize that there are some people out there who just do jerkry things. In fact, at some point or another, probably most everyone is a jerk to someone else. It's no fun to be on the receiving end of someone being a jerk -- but it happens. However, in the last few years, there's been this silly focus on trying to turn online jerks into criminals. We've already highlighted such an effort underway in the US, but now a bunch of teachers in Canada are pushing to make cyberbullying a criminal offense. Yes, it's important to deal with cyberbullies, but charging them with a crime clearly goes too far.

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Is A Fake Facebook Profile Illegal?

from the down-in-the-legal-weeds dept

Remember the guy who was arrested and sent to jail for creating a fake Facebook profile of a Moroccan prince? While it's unlikely that anyone will land in jail, more such disputes have been ending up in the courtroom. It seems to be most popular in high schools, where teachers and administrators are suing students for setting up fake profiles of them. It's not difficult to see why these adults are upset -- as the profiles are usually quite unflattering. But, it's an open question as to whether or not the profiles are illegal. Even more to the point, Facebook has a clear policy that it will delete fake profiles when it becomes aware of them, so it seems like quite a bit of overkill for teachers to sue students rather than just having Facebook take down the profiles.

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Teachers Promote Sales Of Bullying Video Game

from the streisand-effect dept

In 2006, we covered the ridiculous campaign to censor Bully, a video game that anti-video game Jack Thompson started denouncing before he'd even had a chance to play it. Now some teachers' organizations are up in arms about the game's sequel, "Bully: Scholarship Edition." The teachers claim it promotes violence, but some anti-bullying advocates thought just the opposite about the original. Even assuming the teachers are right that the game glorifies bullying, the teachers' campaign still seems awfully counterproductive. There's no real evidence of a link between violent video games and real-world violence. American courts have repeatedly held that video games are protected by the First Amendment, so it's not like a ban would pass constitutional muster anyway, at least here in the states. But the biggest problem with the teachers' campaign is our friend the Streisand Effect: I bet a lot of our readers had never heard of "Bully: Scholarship Edition" until they read this post. I certainly hadn't before I started writing it. Getting singled out for condemnation by humorless teachers' organizations is the kind of publicity money simply cannot buy. The teachers' efforts are going to give the game more buzz than it would have gotten otherwise, and that will cause a lot more people to hear about it, which will lead to more kids playing it. Personally, I think the vast majority of kids know the difference between playing a game and bullying people in real life, so that doesn't worry me too much. But if the teachers' theory about the link between video games and real-world behavior is correct, their own campaign is likely contributing to the problem by making the game more popular.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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UK Teachers Union Demands YouTube And RateMyTeacher Be Shut Down

from the censorship-to-beat-cyberbullying? dept

Back in May, we wrote about teachers in the UK demanding that "something must be done" about cyberbullying of teachers. It appears that teachers have had enough of the various online pranks and tricks that kids pull on teachers. However, as we pointed out at the time, the "something must be done" cry seems pretty pointless. Kids are always going to find ways to bully each other and teachers, and there's no magic bullet solution. Apparently, the teachers missed that lesson, because they're back with actual suggestions on what can be done. Dave writes in to let us know that a teacher's union in the UK (apparently one of many) has adopted a resolution asking for a ban on sites used for cyberbullying. Reading the details of the resolution shows the only two sites they name are YouTube and RateMyTeacher.com -- both of which have many perfectly legitimate uses and where cyberbullying takes up a tiny fraction of their usage. More importantly, however, shutting down these sites will have absolutely no impact on bullying -- except perhaps encouraging the kids to turn it up a notch, knowing that their tactics have had the desired impact. There are nearly infinite outlets for the cyberbullying to take place, and shutting down one will simply encourage kids to use a different method of cyberbullying. It seems highly unlikely that the teachers will get their way, but it's nice (ok, more like troublesome) to know that a bunch of teachers seem to think that the best way to deal with problems between people is censorship and blaming the tool involved.

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