Our view: Everyone’s space
A teenager who grabs a megaphone and talks about drinking or drugs or whatever shouldn’t be surprised to find that he was heard. Certainly, it takes a bit more work to find public messages on MySpace, Facebook and other online social sites, but teens are still responsible for what they write. And if adults see it, that’s hardly surprising. If teens want the information to be private, they can keep it private.
But what happens next presents a conundrum for school administrators. Do they intervene when illegal activity is discussed? Should they directly deal with students who are spotted in pictures drinking alcohol or using illegal drugs when not at school? What if the activities depicted would violate contracts signed for extracurricular activities?
Administrators don’t want to be “Net nannies,” but when information is brought to them, they can’t be expected to ignore it. Officials in the Coeur d’Alene School District have a more hands-on approach than those in Spokane schools, as evidenced by a recent event in which a Coeur d’Alene High School student was called into the office because of a picture on his MySpace page that showed drinking from a bottle labeled “beer” and something else labeled “crack.”
The student said he posted it as a joke to rile administrators who had lectured students about their online party pictures. It’s fine for school officials to alert students to the consequences of their public proclamations, especially when those communications are about school and could affect events at school. But they need to be careful with this new way of discovering what teens are up to.
The behaviors do not go away just because kids stop talking about them. In fact, some teens have already limited access to their sites in response to school crackdowns. Social networking sites offer a glimpse into the concerns of teenagers in general. If officials get too intrusive, they can lose an avenue of awareness.
That’s not to say that they should sit on suspicions of illegal behavior, but they would be wiser to pass along the information to the proper authorities, rather than meting out discipline for events outside of school. One Coeur d’Alene student was hauled into an assistant principal’s office and his mother notified when he was spotted in a picture with other students who were holding alcohol. His mother thinks that is going too far. She’s right.
Just as schools contact authorities when they suspect child abuse, they ought to turn over suspicions of illegal activity to police. And if behaviors that wouldn’t be allowed at school are witnessed away from school, administrators ought to consider whether constant interventions will poison their relationships with students in the long term.
But the final word is reserved for students. There is no privacy on public forums. If you don’t want be found out, keep it to yourself.