10/24/2011

Facebook post leads to student suspension

A student was suspended for two semesters because of critical Facebook comments about being deluged with credit card offers the day after his community college issued him student ID which doubled as a debit card. "Anyone else's inbox full of spam today? I wonder if they'd like it if we register them with every porn site known to man. Anyone know of any good viruses we could send them?" he posted. He immediately followed up with this post: "OK, maybe that would be a bit excessive."

■Class discussion: College officials called his posts 'disturbing', said the posts suggested 'malicious action' and found him guilty of violating school policy. Do you think his Facebook post was threatening? Could college officials simply have been embarrassed or irritated by his criticism? Find other instances of students and employees getting in trouble over Facebook or Twitter posts or pictures. Are you careful about what you say on the Internet?