Janice Makinen's In an IPodWorld

infringing on your [digital] rights

So after my previous blog entry I found this article…

The summary of the story is, that the principle of a roman catholic school in new jersey has ordered all students to remove all postings about themselves or about school from their blogs or websites…EVEN if they were posted from home. All of this hullabaloo was allegedly caused by a student who was chatting with someone online who they thought was another teenager, but who in reality was an adult. (Mind you, nothing bad came out of the situation, no meetings, kidnapping, etc)

This brings up an interesting point. Are blogs becoming so popular among young America, that they are interfering with their schooling? Or are people becoming so paranoid about the mystery that is cyberspace, that they feel censorship is the only option?

Personally, I believe it is the latter. We are living in a scary time, where placing on restrictions on freedom loving, red white and blue citizens becomes the ‘best’ way to ‘protect’ others and themselves from their actions and actions from others…while simultaneously infringing on their personal rights.

I understand that this was a private school, but one must draw the line between private lives and work/school lives. Even if it is a private school, the right to free speech should prevail! This is almost like saying that a school has placed restrictions on it’s female students saying that they may not date until they are 17. Is this not the job of their parents? Have parents become so separated from their children that schools are now doing their job?

If the school finds out that students are keeping blogs, they can be suspended.

I don’t get it. Is this a reaction to fear? Are the administrators of this school afraid that their students, presumably oppressed under the firm hand of their school administration, will become a ‘smart mob’, mobilizing themselves via the internet? If this is the case, they are taking the wrong mode of action…if it is blogs today, tomorrow they will have to ban instant messaging, text messaging, telephone conversations and eventual all communication with others outside of the school community. Ok, maybe I’m taking it a little too far. But you can see where I am going with this.

It is inevitable an underground revolution will emerge under this authority…how hard could it be to create an anonymous blog?

I think that blogs are a great way for kids to get their feelings out, or keep in touch with friends. In today’s crazy world, teenagers need an outlet where they can be themselves…somewhere to ‘digitally run’ to. Taking this away could create even more problems…I’d love to see a follow up on this story…