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(EMAILWIRE.COM, April 15, 2011 ) Hartford, CT -- Old Saybrook High School students got upset after their school showed their own status updates and actual Facebook photos during an assembly that was supposed to be about Internet safety.
The students said that they should have been notified that the school was going to use their photos and information, and later on expressed outrage in their own social networking accounts, such as Twitter. The authorities, however, thought otherwise. They said that the purpose of the talk was for the students to know how public their information was on the Internet, and the school seemed to have gotten its point across.
"The point was to help kids understand what they're putting out there. Here are some respectful and appropriate pictures of each other, so let's keep it that way." School Principal Oliver Barton said.
Only the freshmen students were able to attend the event because the students in higher year levels were sitting their Connecticut Academic Performance Test. Kayla, a freshmen student who prefers her last name to be hidden, said that the school told them that they "personalized" the presentation. She further added that the older students also got upset when they heard about what happened in the assembly.
The school pulled around 15-20 photos from the students' Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr accounts, and said that thousands of people can already access their photos if the students weren't careful enough with their privacy settings.
Police Sgt. Kevin Roche said, "Kids are putting up pictures of parties they attend — people are seeing these pictures. We try to educate them about that. And (as a) way to educate them about that and who's seeing pictures, he has a Facebook account and he went on and pulled a couple innocent pictures of kids having fun to show as an example. The pictures were used just as a learning tool. Did he get their permission first? No. If he did, that would have taken away shock value of what pictures are out there."
An attorney questioned about the matter did not believe that the school broke any laws.
A junior said that the students were discussing about the things they post online because "this might get back to the school."
The authorities hoped that the students had learned the lesson, and would next time be extra cautious about their online social networking posts and activities. Internet predators can easily access information if their accounts weren't restricted enough to people the students really know.
The school principal also added that universities and employers can look up the students' profiles when they are in the process of applying to college or jobs.
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