This week I spoke at Cody's Books in Berkeley and was struck when the 17-year-old employee who was helping with the event shared that kids at Berkeley High had posted a fight video on YouTube. She was so matter of fact and almost blase about it. When I asked her what she thought they were thinking when they posted it, she said, "only that a couple of people would see it."

The searchability factor seems to be completely lost to teens when they post inappropriate stuff online. Because most of the communicating they do online is with friends they know offline, they forget that anyone else can also find these conversations, MySpace pages or videos. Of course the Cody's teen told me the teens who posted the fight video are being sued by the victim's family. Ugh.

Speaking of lawsuits, it definitely seems like this stuff is beginning to play out in court. USA Today reported that "a judge violated a juvenile's free-speech rights when he placed her on probation for posting an expletive-laden entry on MySpace criticizing a school principal, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled." More from the story:

In February 2006, Greencastle Middle School Principal Shawn Gobert discovered a Web page on MySpace purportedly created by him. A.B., who did not create the page, made derogatory postings on it concerning the school's policy on body piercings.

The state filed a delinquency petition in March alleging that A.B.'s acts would have been harassment, identity deception and identity theft if committed by an adult. The juvenile court dropped most of the charges but in June found A.B. to be a delinquent child and placed her on nine months of probation. The judge ruled the comments were obscene.

A.B. appealed, arguing that her comments were protected political speech under both the state and federal constitutions because they dealt with school policy.

I also spotted this item about a principal who is suing former students for a fake MySpace page the posted about him:

MySpaces profile under the name of a former Pennsylvania high school principal depicted Eric Trosch as a hard-drinking, skirt-chasing pornography lover who thinks sex with students should be legalized. Not quite. The ex-Hickory High School principal claims four of his former students posted the phony profile, which hurt his reputation and left him embarrassed and humiliated. Now he’s suing those ex-students. The Court of Common Pleas lawsuit, as reported by TheSmokingGun.com, claims the students defamed Trosch by posting a series of MySpace pages about him over several days in December 2005. Trosch is now principal of Hermitage Middle School. With the help of MySpace, he was able to have the fake profiles deleted within a few days of their posting online, according to the complaint.

It pains me that principals are suing students rather than being able to resolve this outside of the legal system. I have a feeling that these students won't be protected under free speech, since they were defaming his character.

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