Views on Internet Safety

My sister is an educator and has told me about some trouble students have gotten into using the Internet. I am aware of a case in which a student's mother posted negative material about one of her daughter's classmates, and the classmate was so affected by the posts that she committed suicide. In one book, I read about a middle school student who posted naked photos of herself online and was expelled from school. Recently, at a local school, explicit material involving a student was sent from phone to phone, and a number of staff were fired. In our education classes, some of our teachers have urged us not to have Facebook or MySpace accounts because some of their former students were denied jobs in education due to old content that was posted by their friends. Apart from these issues, I am not too aware of Internet dangers, and my main concern has been identity protection. I suppose if my son were old enough to use the Internet or if I were in the classroom teaching, I would have a very different outlook on Internet safety.