A student of Mesa Verde Highschool in California was suspended for calling a teacher on Facebook, a “fat ass who should stop eating fast food, and is a douche bag.” The comment was posted after the kid received an unusually large amount of homework and was done on his home computer after school hours. In a similar incident, an employee was fired for making derogatory remarks about a supervisor in a Facebook status update. In both cases, though the speech was not threatening, it was rude and offensive. The American Civil Liberties Union is now claiming that these people’s free speech rights were violated.
The internet has created a new area where traditional boundaries do not apply. If the student had made that remark during class, it would be clear that the school was right in disciplining him. However, the fact that it was made at home and on his own time, that now blurs the limits of the disciplining power of the school. As we’ve learned in ICT class, how the freedom of speech is to be protected and regulated should be a function of technology, which is why I somehow agree with the ACLU. Today’s generation have a new medium of expression, that is, through social networking sites. It’s the new form of conversing among friends, and we should be free to vent to our friends. I do think that it is protected speech, it’s just that I believe manners are also important which is why we shouldn’t call people names out “in public.”
*to read the article, go to http://mashable.com/2011/02/01/facebook-free-speech-high-school/
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