

12-year-old sues school district over Facebook profile search - redridingnews
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57394877-71/12-year-old-sues-school-district-over-facebook-profile-search/

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joshmlewis
So this sort of happened to me last year while in my senior year of high
school.

A friend and I started a Facebook group called "Sleeping students of GHS" and
we had people send in pictures to an email address I created and we'd upload
them to the group page. Which was quite interesting because we couldn't be
held responsible for actually taking the pictures.

Well the group went viral in a matter of a few days, first a hundred, then a
few hundred, then 2-3k. And in a relatively small southern town, around 13k
people, that's a pretty big deal.

It was crazy. I felt like Julian Assange for a couple weeks. Nervously posting
things and worried about the school big dogs hunting me down. (of course this
wasn't anything like WL, but the same idea.) Parents were starting to be like,
"Wait, why are these students sleeping? What are the teachers doing about
this?" and this in turn caused a big uproar in the school. Schools hate bad
publicity. The next day I get called into the office and a couple assistant
principals and a police officer were like, "Do you have permission from all
these students parents to upload these pictures?" and I said, "No. I didn't
think you needed it." They in turn told me that the school was liable for a
law suit, yada yada, and that I need to delete it.

They had me login to my account in front of them and delete it. THIS WAS MY
BIGGEST MISTAKE. Damn it. I was furious with myself afterwards. Lesson learned
I suppose. It didn't take long for an outsider to the school to approach me
and make another joint account. That way if it's outside the school they can't
do anything.

At this point local news agencies were calling me and emailing me asking to
interview. It was on the front page of newspapers. I learned that it is indeed
not illegal to take pictures of minors in a public place and the school was
just BS'ing me to get me to delete it. I was a little scared in that office. I
was in contact with the ACLU and a digital rights lawyer in San Francisco,
just in case they issued any kind of punishment toward me.

It went on for a couple more weeks, we even had tshirts made, and then bam,
Facebook shuts it down. No notice, no warning, just bam. We get an email
saying "Your page was against our ToS, sorry" and that was that. It all ended
in a haze. To this day I wonder why Facebook shut it down. I tried contacting
them but to no avail.

~~~
joshmlewis
Also, at the same school I mentioned before, later in the year they started
cracking down on Facebook. Teachers were getting reprimanded for being friends
with students. Students were getting suspended and banned from the prom
because they posted a rant about a teacher or worker at the school. It was
ridiculous.

~~~
pjriot
Should a teacher friend a student though? I'm not completely sure that's
appropriate.

~~~
joshmlewis
Yes, there definitely is an argument against it. And I'm sure they are wanting
to help teachers avoid getting too close to their students, which would allow
for inappropriate behavior. But I there's always a case against something. The
fact that teachers were actually getting punished for it is on another level.

From my perspective it was quite useful. I myself sucked at remembering tests
(because I was on here too much) and she knew it, she would just say "hey,
don't forget our test tomorrow :)" and that helped me. She didn't have to do
that but it was a nice gesture and it helped me remember.

------
dsr_
It's important to remember that rights are meaningless if they are not
exercised and defended, and that often means uncomfortable placement of walls.
Not every case will be as media-friendly as a 12 year old girl posting to
Facebook that someone was mean to her. The Miranda decision that established
the right to be told your rights when under arrest -- the right to remain
silent and so forth -- well, Ernesto Miranda was found guilty of kidnapping
and rape in the second trial. Not a great person.

~~~
ComputerGuru
Isn't that a huge non-sequitur? What do the Miranda Rights have to do with the
first half of your sentence?

~~~
saryant
I think he's trying to say that defending our rights will sometimes mean
defending bad people. Not every case will be in defense of an innocent
12-year-old, sometimes you have to stick up for rapists too.

~~~
joedevon
Innocent 12 year old? LOL.

Try being a teacher. Then read that article from the perspective of the
educator and it reads completely differently.

~~~
redridingnews
Maybe 12 year olds aren't THAT innocent, but come on. What about privacy? And
as an adult, how would you feel if the boss of your boss asks for your
facebook's password so they can have an eye on your boss and co-workers?

------
whalesalad
I hope she wins. I cannot stand the things that our government are getting
away with these days. It was founded with the ideal of complete personal
freedom, and now it seems as though everyone is starting to go "woah woah okay
okay yeah that was fun for a while but now you're all fucked."

~~~
melling
I think that if the founders simply wanted to say "complete personal freedom"
then it would have been simpler to write that. The classic "you can't yell
fire in a crowded movie theater" example. You can't just say anything that you
want.

The real problem is that everyone thinks that if we all just use common sense,
and be nice to each other, it'll be ok, but that doesn't get us very far. If
some kid slanders someone else, for example, how should it be dealt with? You
don't have complete freedom to say anything you want about someone else.

...I guess the short of it is that if you don't want the school to handle the
problem, be very specific about how the problems should be dealt with,
otherwise when my personal freedom and yours clash, we're going to have a
mess. Don't just wave the flag and cry "freedom!"

[Update]

I got down voted immediately. Thought I might. :-) Was it the wave the flag
and cry freedom part, or do people think they have complete personal freedom?
Yeah, I'm trying to stick a few simple-minded people in the eye. Anyway,
people really need to think beyond the simple "I don't like it when this
happens..." If you can't provide the answers to a problem, someone else will
do it for you.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
If a kid slanders somebody else, the somebody else can sue for redress in the
courts (or, I don't know, _talk to his/her parents_. It is not the governments
job to monitor its subjects "just in case". That is absurd, and thinking like
that is why 12 year old girls are getting interrogated and why certain
departments think it is OK to fondle citizens, young and old (yes, this case,
it's "allegedly", but this is not the only case.)

K-12 education is such a mess. My kids go to quite good public school, and
even there, it is a joke the control they think have. Anybody know if it is a
violation of the 1st Ammendment to prohibit kids from dying their hair
(serious question)? As a kid who had blue hair, that prohibition drives me
nuts!

~~~
SoftwareMaven
To answer my own question on the hair: it depends [1]. And it appears in my
area, the answer is "hair isn't important enough to be speech".

1\.
[http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12...](http://www.firstamendmentschools.org/freedoms/faq.aspx?id=12817)

~~~
Zak
Hair isn't important enough to be speech, but _is_ important enough to
regulate? I must admit to being just a little confused.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
Maybe if you use the dye to write a message...

------
melling
Just out of curiosity, what do people think schools, parents, etc should do
about minors and Facebook? Bullying, "naughty" pics of themselves, and just
simple over the top kid drama. Facebook is public. It's not your diary. You
are sharing it with your hundred "closests" friends. Rush Limbaugh calls
someone a slut on the radio and people are outraged. I can imagine that kids
are quite rough with each other on a daily basis.

~~~
nakkiel
I believe Facebook has features in place to let users target groups of users
when posting. Perhaps School and Parents' role is to guide/teach children in
our digital mess.

School has no business checking people's private things though. Parents may
have some rights but I'd also say children have an expectation for privacy.

~~~
Donald
Schools act in loco parentis. They courts have generally held that educational
institutions can violate what would otherwise be the rights of their students
if such actions are necessary to fulfill the educational mission of the
school.

~~~
tibbon
In Loco Parentis has never really made sense to me. Not when I was younger,
and not now. As everyone knows, different people will act differently as
parents. Were I a parent, I don't want someone else making decisions that I
should be making or acting in my place unless I specifically know and trust
their system of values.

------
nsns
These are certainly the first days of social networking, the law and social
conventions still have a lot of catching up to do.

On a different note, I find it quite ironic that Facebook forbids children
under 13 from opening accounts, while encouraging behavior ("I like this!")
most suitable for their age spectrum.

~~~
xiaoma
It's not that facebook wouldn't like the users. It's the costs and risks of
trying to comply with COPPA regulations.

------
flexd
How on earth did they think this was okay? These days that might actually be
the same as asking someone for their diary.

Or at least if they judged you from what was written in your blog or something
like that.

------
mike-cardwell
"The district is confident that once all facts come to light, the district's
conduct will be found to be reasonable and appropriate."

I can't imagine what these "facts" are, but I will reserve judgement until
I've heard them.

~~~
namidark
Doesn't really matter what 'facts' they have, you can't just throw out the 4th
amendment.

~~~
mike-cardwell
Again. I will wait to hear the facts before making the mistake of assuming
that they, "threw out the 4th amendment"

------
plasma
Pathetic. I'm sure the school would not have asked someone if they thought
they could walk all over them.

There is no way anyone could coerce me to hand something over like that (and I
don't even use Facebook much!)

~~~
antihero
You are flown to a country you do not know of, tied to a chair and have a
knife held to your balls.

------
meenriquez
This happened to a page that my former classmates made too. It was made up of
pictures of people in the community that they think weren't helping. It didn't
get much popularity though. But it got shut down by facebook too. They later
on found out that several people reported them using the "report/block"
button. These people are relatives of the people that they posted funny topics
about. They couldn't do anything about it.

On a related note, maybe the people who deserve to be reported are the likes
of Justin Bieber. See Bieber tweets a phone number, except the last digit.
Real people driven mad <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3690118>

------
jackfoxy
>I hope she wins.

I hope to see the day when every headline _[subject] sues [government entity]
over [grievance]_ parses to something other than _[subject] sues taxpayers
over [grievance]_

~~~
ef4
It sure would be nice if government employees were held _personally_ liable
for breaking the law in their official capacity.

------
veyron
Doesn't COPPA require that Facebook users be at least 13 years old? If so, how
could she have registered for Facebook in the first place?

~~~
bphogan
I have never seen a web site that makes you prove your age to sign up. My
daughter's friends all have Facebook sites. I refuse to let her. Their
parents, on the other hand, allow it.

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drhowarddrfine
12-year old girls don't sue anyone. It's the parents doing this. Period.

~~~
electromagnetic
How is it the parents doing this, I didn't see it written anywhere in the
article that they're lawyers.

The 12 year old is the plaintiff, not the parents. The lawyer may have thought
she had a good enough case to hold billing, and may have even held
disbursements (although more likely the parents agreed to pay for
disbursements for the case).

------
MrTibbles
how awesome is it kids who can't drive, drink, or have sex, are somehow
allowed to sue people. H0ly FUcK O_o

~~~
redridingnews
First of all, I don't think that's the point. Not at all. Next, kids should
not be prevented to file law suits if deemed necessary (ex. sexual harassment,
child abuse). And finally, according to the article, it was the American Civil
Liberties Union of Minnesota that filed the case.

