When is Social Media Wrong?

Social media is now being used, not only by public officials notifying of deaths but students being reprimanded for posts.   Is this going too far?  What happened to our social conscious in the former and our first amendment rights in the latter?

Here are four different instances where parents and relatives have been notified of the death of their loved ones through Facebook.  

In the first instance, a mother, Anna Lamb-Creasey in Georgia was notified to call the police where they were using one of their undercover aliases, "Misty Hancock."  Tom Jones of WSBTV wrote, “Anna Lamb-Creasey told Channel 2's Tom Jones she had no idea that if someone who is not a "friend" sends her a message, it goes to a box called "other" in the message folder. "

Her daughter read this post in her own inbox that said to call the police.  The mother thought it was a joke but her daughter convinced her to make the call.  Much to her dismay, this was the call she had been waiting months for. Her son was dead.

In another instance, the father had custody of the son in New York State and the mother, Jackie Barden, was not notified at all and read of her son’s death on face book per Kristen Gosling, U.S. World News.  The police claimed they thought the father had notified the mother of his death. By the time she found out, it was too late to view her son’s body.

Still another incident a young Georgia college student, Jasmine Benjamin, was found dead in her dorm and "Benjamin's mother Judith Brogdon and stepfather James Jackson were notified of her death when a friend forwarded a Facebook post about the discovery" writes Jeff Truesdell of People Magazine. 

What happened to the day when the police at least tried to come to your home or leave a message on your door to call them?    There is no excuse possible for not taking into account human decency.  Have we become so desensitized and uncaring of the feelings of our fellow citizens?

And now we are even getting to the point where tweeting something about a person is punishable as shown LIDIA CURANAJ of FoxTwinCities reported,  "Erik Nielsen, a student at Curtis High School on Staten Island, was suspended after he Tweeted a photo of a teacher's car parked in a no-parking zone and wrote "I hope Mr. Pillarella gets towed."

In another instance the following happened:  Lou Raguse of WIVB4 in New York reportsm  tthatin WNY, a senior High school honor student and his friends were removed from the stands at their school's hockey game for being disruptive.

The student posted a tweet: "F*** mrs._____ #freedomofspeech like come on why did u do that!""

He was suspended for a week."

How do you feel about the actions of the officials in these instances and how would you feel if this was the new way of contacting loved ones in the future or actions being taken for social media usage?  When does the first amendment rights apply and should they in social media?  Can you see any action being taken by the courts or public officials to protect freedom of expression or speech through social media?

Feel free to contact us with your opinion on this topic at Commuter@linnbenton.edu.