Calif. School Suspends 20 Who Saw Web Site - Huh?

[Kadie]

Calif. School Suspends 20 Who Saw Web Site

Thursday, March 2, 2006


(03-02) 12:08 PST Costa Mesa, Calif. (AP) --


A middle school student faces expulsion for allegedly posting graphic threats against a classmate on the popular MySpace.com Web site, and 20 of his classmates were suspended for viewing the posting, school officials said.


Police are investigating the boy's comments about his classmate at TeWinkle Middle School as a possible hate crime, and the district is trying to expel him.


According to three parents of the suspended students, the invitation to join the boy's MySpace group gave no indication of the alleged threat. They said the MySpace social group name's was "I hate (girl's name)" and included an expletive and an anti-Semitic reference.


A later message to group members directed them to a nondescript folder, which included a posting that allegedly asked: "Who here in the (group name) wants to take a shotgun and blast her in the head over a thousand times?"


Because the creator of a posting can change its content at any time, it's unclear how much the students saw.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/03/02/national/a114916S36.DTL

[bluestateguy]

1. A lot of stupid people go into school administration

nt

[Nikki Stone 1]

12. Amen!

I've dealt with a few of them myself...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. TeWinkle Middle School?

That's just asking for trouble.

[bliss_eternal]

3. What's the deal with myspace?

They are in the news a great deal of late. I just watched a report a few nights ago, where a girl was abducted and it was determined she had been speaking to the guy on myspace. I've also read of other incidents with kids and myspace--young girls' posting suggestive photos of themselves, pedophiles chatting up young girls and guys, etc.

Either someone really has it out for myspace or something is not right with that web community.

[MsKandice01]

4. I belong to MySpace myself...

And I think it's just the fact that there are sooooo many people on there that it gets so much attention. I think the number is somewhere around 50 million. Actually, kids under 16 aren't even supposed to be getting messages unsolicited but the kids lie about their age all the time. I don't know if MySpace itself is the problem.

[DarkTirade]

9. Yeah, just do a search on people age 90-100

and you'll see a whole bunch of teenagers. Some of whom don't want to tell their own age, with a sprinkling of gothy type people who think they're 100 year old vampires. :)

[LiberalVoice]

5. its got over 55 million members...

What do you expect?

[LynneSin]

7. Something is not right with that web community

I had a friend who was telling me about how she found her daughter's myspace website and she was shocked at what was on there.

MySpace is nothing more than a breeding ground for pedophilia. Kids love it because they can post about themselves and pictures and other stuff including personal informaton. Pedophiles then sort through it all finding their prey for their next victim.

If I was a mother and had kids I would ban that site and lock it down on all of my computers. And then I would tell other mothers about them and hope they would do the same.

After your 18years old I suppose it's a fun site

[LizW]

10. Some of my son's middle school friends were posting on it

One of the parents found out and called the rest of us. It's not a good thing for middle schoolers. They don't have the judgement to know what information to post and what not to. And they think that just because you have to be invited to join, that it's safe and adults don't get on there. Boy, were our kids shocked when they found out we could.

I have a friend who is a police officer who says the police use it to get info about what the kids are up to. They routinely look for evidence of illegal behavior.

[seabeyond]

6. or they could have gotten group together and adults/parents work

together teaching talking and listening to kids to learn from this experience and how why this isnt good acceptable. be brave enough to say this is wrong. strengthen character of child. granted this takes more time than an easy suspencion and then parents can and will side with kid ergo making htis battle between school and family..... opposed to all working together.

[Idioteque]

8. Speaking as a high school senior...

...MySpace is an important part of youth culture. I would say that at least half of my friends, if not more, are MySpace members.

I was reading about some kids who posted pictures of themselves drinking and when some teacher saw the pics, the kids were banned from extracurriculars. ( I don't get why giving them more free time would help.) Some other kids in Littleton, CO were suspended from school for making a post that makes fun of the school.

MySpace is banned at most schools, so these posts were done in the students' free time. Schools have no right to interfere in our lives outside of school.

That being said, if a violent threat is made, it ought to be taken seriously. Other students should not be held responsible for the actions of one student, however. Being suspended for viewing the post is kind of ridiculous.

[LynneSin]

11. The violence isn't the problem

myspace is crawling with pedophiles looking for their next victems. For them, MySpace is like shooting fish in a barrel

[bliss_eternal]

13. Did you see the Primetime report on this?

I think it was Primetime, excuse me if I'm naming the wrong tv news magazine.

They were basically working with a website group that attempts to catch pedophiles in the act. The guys were trolling myspace and were caught through this sting operation. It was an amazing report. Sickened and scared me. It was discussed on a few threads on DU when the report aired.

:scared: