"Reason number 1 for why you shouldn't take Facebook seriously"

"MIAMI — Katherine Evans said she was frustrated with her English teacher for
ignoring her pleas for help with assignments and a brusque reproach when she
missed class to attend a school blood drive.

So Ms. Evans, who was then a high school senior and honor student, logged
onto the networking site Facebook
and wrote a rant against the teacher, Sarah Phelps."

Long story short, Katie Evans now has on her permanent record that she got pissed off with her teacher and earned herself 3-day suspension for whining about it on Facebook. *sigh* I'm all for social networking websites and freedom of speech [clearly] but the girl went so far as to basically create a hate group targeting her teacher. That's a little much, don'tcha think?

“You can express an opinion on whether someone is a good teacher,” said Pamela
Brown, assistant director for the Broward County School District who oversees
expulsions. “But when you start inviting people to say that they hate a teacher,
that crosses the line.”

[Source - NY Times]

I'm sure this girl thought that starting the post, getting feedback, and then removing it within a week wasn't going to come back and bite her, but it seems she was wrong. In less than two months after making the post she was called down to the principal's office and got her little sentence of suspension.

She's now attending the University of Florida as a freshman and is only suing her principal to get her record cleared. She doesn't even care about them trying to OD on her life by blowing this out of complete proportion. It's only Facebook. No one was hurt. It's not like she was saying the teacher commited some felony.

I just think it's a little much on both parts. No, Katie should not have gotten other Facebook-ers involved in throwing dirt on the teachers' name and No, I don't think she should have gotten suspended. No harm, no foul. I think it's safe to say she learned her lesson. Just let this be a warning to those who like to excersize free speech though - It's okay as long as you don't start a group targeting one person, apparently.