A Roman Catholic School in Newark, N.J. has ordered the students to stop blogging. A lot of the kids in the High School keep online journals, much like the one you are reading. The head of school has ordered a cease and desist on the blogs, quoting "protection" versus "censorship". Their claim is that they are trying to protect the students from cybercrimes. They further claim that this has been a rule in their institute for close to five years but they are just now enforcing it. Right, and they new that blogging was going to be a school-wide issue in 2000.
I personally think this is an outrage. A huge hit on freedom of speech. It is not the same case as the censorship of Milblogging (military blogging). A lot of soldiers in Iraq have set up blogs to record their dailey routines and to keep in touch with loved ones. Some have blogged pretty secret stuff and have been ordered to cease and desist for fear of dischargment. Understandable... war time equals keep-your-mouth-shut time.
5 comments:
If the students are using school owned computers for their bloggin, then the school has every right to order a cease and desist. If, on the other hand, they think that they can order students to stop bloggin altogether, even on their own equipment...they need to think again.
I agree, then it becomes not a privacy issue, but a school issue. However, in this case, the Head of School is not allowing the students to even have a blog. This is wrong, regardless of where it is posted from.
what promoted all this? was there an offensive blog that someone came across or was this just pulled out of no where?
i agree, tho. it is completely ridiculous. school officials are starting to become over-protective now-a-days. no offense, kelly.
oh I completely agree with that statement.
While i completely agree that the school does not have a right to ban blogging completely, i do, however, kind of see where they are coming from. It appears, to me, that school officals are trying to take over the role of parents. They seem to think that the parents are not doing a good enough job controlling their children, so it then becomes the schools responsibilty. (i.e. the long island case of the cancelled prom...).
again, i am not saying that i agree, just stating an alternative thought.
Post a Comment