[K12OSN] OT: "MySpace.com" or "policies for when computer useleads to assault and battery on campus"

[Paul VanGundy]

MySpace has been blocked since day one in our district. As far as policy,
take a look at the Children's Internet Protection Act
(http://www.ifea.net/cipa.pdf). We had some personnel opposed to
filtering...recently they found MySpace websites that students had created
for teachers...and as you can guess the teachers had no clue and horrible
things were being said on there and it would appear as though the teacher
had said those things. They approved of the filtering after that incident.
School districts in the area have also had some legal issues that involved
MySpace. MySpace is a horrible blog site that I would say every school
district needs to block. If staff and students want to blog, get some
educational blog sites. 

-Paul

--
Paul VanGundy
Information Technology Director
Epping High School
Epping Middle School
P: 603.679.5472
F: 603.679.2966
vangundypw at sau14.k12.nh.us
Registered Linux User #398783

-----Original Message-----
From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf
Of Petre Scheie
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:58 AM
To: Support list for opensource software in schools.
Subject: Re: [K12OSN] OT: "MySpace.com" or "policies for when computer
useleads to assault and battery on campus"

In my local school, access to MySpace is blocked for this and other reasons.
Of course, that doesn't control what the kids do outside of school.

Petre

Steven Santos wrote:
> Slightly off topic, but since I can't think of a group that would know 
> more about this...
> 
> A school in the area has been hit with a rash of in school assaults 
> over things that have been posted to myspace.com, and specifically 
> things posted by students claiming to be other students.
> 
> Case in point, one student was contacted by what he thought was his 
> girl friend telling him she had been sexually assaulted by another 
> student.  When the girlfriend isn't in school the next day (due to a 
> scheduled ortho
> appointment) the boyfriend proceeds to beat the crap out of the other 
> boy in school.
> 
> Further investigation showed the myspace account that sent the message 
> was a complete copy of the girlfriends account, with a slight, and 
> unnoticed alteration in the username (name1211313 instead of 
> name121313) used to help pull off the deception.
> 
> The school has had 5 or 6 other instances not unlike this one over the 
> past 60 days where assaults have taken place, and 15 or so that they 
> were able to avert. Criminal prosecution in these cases is often 
> difficult, as the person committing the actual assault is often also a 
> victim, and tracking down who is behind it is proving to be almost 
> impossible. I should also note that the myspace postings are taking place
off school grounds.
> 
> What policies and procedures do people have in place, or could your 
> recommend to deal with these types of issues?
> 
> 
> 
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