Thursday, December 3, 2009

Facebook not necessary for self incrimination

I'd like some input on this one. I honestly can't decide how I feel about this. Somehow I wound up at theweek.com and a headline caught my eye. "Post a vulgar comment, lose your job" it said.

It seems a teacher made an anonymous comment on the local papers website responding to the question, "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten?" He responded with a word occasionally found before the word cat.

Apparently being the impatient type he couldn't wait to get home and posted his anonymous response from the school. Then when it was deleted he reposted. The editor of the paper either noticed the post was made from the school, and contacted them to report that someone from the school was posting lewd comments. The school was able to determine who made the post and when confronted he resigned or was fired.

This was clearly an overreaction by the paper. When they asked for the craziest thing you've eaten, they had to know someone was going to post that response. When it appeared again they shouldn't have been surprised. Frankly, I think being stupid enough to ask that question warrants some type of disciplinary action.

On the other hand, what kind of idiot posts obscenities from work? Twice. Even anonymously, you risk someone noticing as you post it.

What do you think? Should the editor have contacted the school? Should the guy have been fired?

And remember kiddies, there is no such thing as anonymity online. If they want to bad enough, there is almost always a way to find out who you are.

[Edited for better title]

1 comment:

  1. What stupid things to do, both the comment from the teacher and the (over)reaction by the paper's webmaster.

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