It seems like the MySpace stories in the news get stranger by the day, and this one is no exception. Police in Farmington, Conn have charged a 13 year old girl with criminal impersonation for creating a MySpace profile claiming to be her teacher. The article doesn’t say what the profile said, but we can probably assume that it wasn’t nice things.
Now, I’m not denying the school should do something about this issue – they should. The consequences could be bad if a student were to send a confidential message to the teacher, or if the blog said something referencing a student. Do I think they should have charged her with criminal impersonation? Hell no.
If we look at the legal defintion of criminal impersonation then we notice some nice red text there. (note: I know this is a colorado definition. I check the Conneticut law and it’s the same. I picked this page because it highlights what I want to talk about.)
It’s hard to see how creating a fake MySpace about a teacher gives this particular 13 year old any unlawful benefits, and it clearly doesn’t subject the teacher to any legal proceedings.
Hopefully this will all be handled without lawyers or prosecutors and the girl will learn an important lesson about what you can and can’t post on the internet (although legally I think she had this right).
While we’re on the lesson train, maybe schools will take note and learn that:
a.) Matters like this are better handled with sit down talks between teachers, students, and parents.
b.) They can’t control what students do on the internet outside of the classroom.
Johnstown Update: I should probably add that IANAL, so don’t go creating fake myspace profiles because I said it should be legal.
According to a recent article, the US now ranks 53rd among all countries in freedom of the press. That’s a big slide from the #17 position we held in 2002.
Speaking of 2002, that’s the same year that we arrested and sent an Al-Jazeera photographer (Sami al-Haj) to prison without charging him of a crime. He’s still sitting in guantanmo.. I’m not sure if he’s been officially charged but he surely hasn’t seen a judge yet.
From the article:
Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.
So how else does one measure freedom of the press? Well there’s Josh Wolf who was jailed in August for refusing to hand over a video he shot to the government.
There’s also Nicholas D. Kristof who was jailed for refusing to reveal his sources for an article.
Does this sound like the land of the free to you? Sure, we’re not completely controling the news like Kim Jong Il does, nor are we torturing those critical of our fearless leader ala Turkmenistan but our press freedoms are worse than many african nations.
When’s the last time we’ve compared ourself to 3rd world countries and they’ve won? We Americans need to realize that the “war on terror” is really an attack on our freedoms, but unfortunately we won’t be getting that information from our local newspapers.
A long time ago I gave up my main email accounts. If I had gotten around to coding an archive for this blog, I’d link it here… One of these days I guess.
Anyway. I disabled every email account that I’d ever publically posted, and replaced all website ones with strict scripts that filter my email and forward it to me only if it contains certain strings that the web forms insert into it. I don’t recieve any spam now, because the only address I have isn’t shared among any companies.
Now, I’m trying it with phone! Whenever a company needs my phone #, I’ve always given them my parents phone number – they’re more likely to answer. So my cell phone is rather private. Now, I’ve just given up my work phone too!!
See, everytime somebody makes a sale they play this stupid rap song over the intercom. The other day it was played 7 times in 20 minutes. Great for the company but annoying for the company’s programmer.
So, no more work phone! If I need to use a call, I use a random phone around the office. If people need to get a hold of me, I give them my MSN. IT’s working great and without phone or email I’m getting so much more done now!
Dear Kevin,
I just read your Wired Article and I can’t believe you did something this stupid. Here’s why:
Kevin, I’m usually all about protecting children. In fact, I run NoSlang.com which urges parents to learn about the internet slang that their kids use.
But you’ve gone too far on this little sex offender escapade. Your code is going to get some sex offender killed.
I know you state otherwise, but there’s really no reason a normal person needs this code other than to harass or threaten sex offenders. Scraping myspace is also a violation of their terms of service, which you fail to mention.
Specificially:
#4 any automated use of the system, such as using scripts to add friends or send comments or messages;
#5 interfering with, disrupting, or creating an undue burden on the MySpace Services or the networks or services connected to the MySpace Services;
I honestly hope that if somebody uses your software to track down a sex offender and kill him, that you get charged with murder.
Sure, you’re liable to find the occasional sex offender on there who’s doing wrong… but for every one of those, there’s 100 more who aren’t doing anything wrong. Is it worth inflicting undue harrassment and threats upon them just to catch 1 creep?
What about those who have been caught peeing in public, or those who had underage girlfriends. In Michigan if 2 15 year olds have sex with each other, they’re sex offenders. Now, thanks to your code they’re going to be harassed constantly on myspace.
The fact of the matter is simple: Most dangerous sex offenders are in prison. The rapists and child touchers generallly get many years in prison. It’s the underage girlfriend, peeing in public people that your program is going to find because they’re the ones not in jail.
Congratulations, you found one pedophile and created undue harassment for many more. You’d have had better luck simply following congressmen home from work.
All of these people you find have been deemed safe to return to society by our justice system. They should be treated the same as you and me.
If we’re going to track and find them, then why don’t you start tracking alcoholics, domestic violence, and even speeders.. because I don’t want children associating with them too.
In fact, lets run the criminal history of anybody who applies for a myspace account. Only those with no crimes against them can have accounts. Then everybody will be safe.
If you put half as much effort into teaching parents to be involved in their kids life as you do into villifying sex offenders, you might actually do some good.
Instead of going after these people, why not go after the kids that seek out and add 40 year old men to their friends list. It’s a 2 way street, and there’s obviously something wrong with those kids and their parents.
There’s an easy way to fix myspace (I wrote about this on shoutwire.com so I won’t repeat myself here)
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that you’re going to be doing more harm than good, and I can’t wait to see you charged as an accomplice when somebody uses your code to do harm to a sex offender or falsely slander somebody else.
After all, considering you yourself say that it’s mostly false positives, what legit use does your code have?
Wouldn’t it be easier and more accurate for a parent to just search the registry by hand for all of their child’s friends?
Update:This is a very old post, and the problem has since been rectified, but it still serves as an example of one of the major problems with Wikipedia – that being that once somebody gets moderator status they’re free to bend Wikipedia to their will. There’s practically no recourse for somebody who’s been banned from editing – whether for legit reasons or for reasons like I mention below. That’s one of the major problems with the site, and why I think the admin policy of Wikipedia sucks.
I’ve been banned from wikipedia. I’m not allowed to edit anything anymore. Did I spam? Nope. Was I vulgar? Nope. All I did was add relevant links to an article (and not even links to my own sites)
The article I’m talking about is the one on Internet Slang.
I not only added links to my own site: noslang.com (an authority site on internet slang according to Google, Kim Kommando, Ken Leebow, Wired, NBC etc..) but to a few other slang dictionaries and slang related sites as well. These included:
Ordinarily I wouldn’t be mad.. but Some Mod on a Power Trip, AbsolutDan seems to think that only the site: FOLDOC.org deserves to be linked there. He’s painstakenly removed every other site.
What’s so great about this site and not the others? Why is it given preferential treatment? Does Dan have a relationship with this site? My guess is probably.
It’s sad to see that wikipedia admins can go on power trips like this. What’s worse is, all of these sites were linked on wikipedia at one time, and have been there for over a year. All I did was put them all (not just mine) back after some crazy admin removed them all.
Since I can’t edit it… if anybody else wants to help out in this cause, simply copy and paste the following wikipedia code:
This site has had a newsy type feel for the last 10 posts or so. That’s not normal. So…. to get back to the blogging side of things, here’s some cool quotes I recently came upon and thought were worth mentioning.
“A Country Music CD is the best therapy $15 can buy” – Dierks Bentley
“When facism comes to America it will be draped in the flag and carrying the cross” – Sinclair Lewis
“The largest danger to freedom is people in power who stand to lose power.” – unknown
“I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you don’t believe in other gods, you’ll understand why I don’t believe in yours” – Stephen F Roberts
“There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.” – Albert Camus
“That’s some Bad Hat Harry” – 🙂 come on.. I couldn’t resist.
Lyons said that Piniella was “hablaing Espanol” — mispronouncing the phrase which means “to speak.” Lyons also said, “I still can’t find my wallet” and “I don’t understand him, and I don’t want to sit too close to him now” in regards to Piniella.
Now, this sounds pretty bad until you take into account what Piniella said before that. Lou made a bad cliche (as only Lou can) in which he compared the A’s to “finding a wallet on friday, and coming back to try to find one saturday and sunday.” Lou then made an “en fuego” comment.
Taking into account Lou’s previous cliche, one can see that that Steve’s comments weren’t racially inappropriate at all. They were in regards to Lou’s “finding a wallet” story. All he meant to say was that Lou was jumping from topic to topic and using too many cliches.
Now, if Fox would have come out and said “we’re firing Steve Lyons because he sucks” I’d have said “good job” – because frankly, Steve Lyons didn’t offer much of anything to that broadcast team. All that’s besides the point though. Fox was wrong to play the race card here. Perhaps they should pay more attention to their own broadcasts?
In other news, all decisions as to entertainment for the world series will be made by MLB and Fox, with no say what-so-ever from the Tigers. In a way that’s good because nobody wants to see Aretha or the various other Motown acts anymore, but I don’t want to see the inevitable American Idol singers either.
Jaws was on today. What a great movie. It made generations of Americans afraid to go into the water. The best thing about the movie is that you don’t even see the shark for the first hour and a half and it’s still a great thriller.
That’s what makes a great horror movie…. the Plot. It’s not about how much blood you have or how creatively you scare the person. It’s about letting your viewer identify with the plot. Let them put themselves into the position as the characters in the film – then they can be genuinely scared.
I also didn’t realize that the “bad hat harry” production company took it’s name from a scene in the opening half hour of jaws. I’ve always seen that at the end of House and thought “where have I seen that before?” Well, it’s a scene in Jaws where the old swimmer comes up to Cheif Brody complaining and the cheif just looks at him and he says “that’s some bad hat harry” in reference to his swim cap.
Just a great movie.. Too bad I can’t say the same for Jaws 4.
The Sun-Sentinal (don’t ask why I’m reading Florida newspapers) has a Recent Article about a “parents primer” in which parents are encouraged to spy on their kids.
“Spy. Spy. Spy,” Sgt. Anthony DeMarco told the crowd of about 40 parents, school administrators and district officials. “Your parents did it to you. Now, it’s your turn.”
While many parents are quick to advocate spying in order to keep their kids safe, it’s not really the best alternative. Using the word “spy” is an indication to kids that they’re not trusted – and that’s just not good parenting. I’m not saying you shouldn’t care about what your kids are doing online; there’s just a better way of doing it.
Instead of spying on them, simply befriend them. Create your own MySpace and Facebook profiles and add your kids as friends. Make an AOL instant messenger account and put your kid on your buddy list. Read their profiles and away messages (after all, they are public information.) If they don’t let you add them, then you can start worrying.
Explain to your kids that anything they post on the internet is public, and they have no expectation of privacy with this material. It’s also a good time to teach them that things they post are permanent, and that potential employers might just end up seeing pictures of them in their underwear holding that beer bottle.
Don’t risk your parent-child relationship by spying. Instead, strengthen it by taking an active role in their online social life.
Here’s another lesson to journalists and bloggers: If you’re going to write a fear mongering article about how out of control drugs have become in our schools, it’s best not to back up your data with quotes like this one about schools implementing drug searches on students:
“99-percent is all for it,” White said citing the survey. “One percent said ‘no.’ And that one percent put on their paper: I use drugs that’s why I wouldn’t want it in the school.”
Ignoring the grammatical mistakes (which isn’t easy), the facts of this quote simply don’t support your article. If most teens are using drugs, then why do 99% support drug searching in school? It would seem to me, that according to the student petition, only 1% of the students are using drugs. That’s not really a problem. In fact, it’s a sharp decrease in drug use.
I’m not saying that drug use isn’t a problem in schools – it probably is. I’m just saying make sure that your numbers make sense before over-reacting to everything.
