May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse sent the first telegraph message from Washington D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland. This date marked the entrance to a new era of communication. For the first time in history, messages could be sent across thousands of miles in seconds. Fast forward to the digital age, where ten people, all millions of miles apart can have a conversation or even video chat in real time. People can spread details about their families, hobbies, and achievements to millions with the click of a button. However, this largely open-ended informational space that we call social media contains many issues. Being able to chat online in a seemingly consequence free and unmonitored space has lead to social media becoming a place of harborage to cyber-bullies
One prime example of this happened right in my area, in South Hadley. Phoebe Prince was a fifteen-year-old student at South Hadley High, who was being harassed on Facebook and taunted over text messages by her peers. She ended up taking her own life on January 14th, 2010. Even then, people continued to taunt her on her Facebook memorial page. One must think that the school should have been monitoring the Facebook accounts of the students at the school. However, the public high school run by the state and local governments lack the power to monitor the social media of their students. The school can only view public profiles unless they request permission to view a student’s private profile. This is shown in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution which gives the people the right to privacy. However, the information may be helpful in preventing cases like the Prince case, so the question is how does the school obtain it legally. The best way is through student reporting; taking a screenshot of a threat and reporting it. The school, however, must rely on students for this, because if the school was to monitor social media they would likely infringe on student's rights. For example, something such as “shoulder-surfing”, where teachers make kids show them their phones may occur, or even worse they begin to punish free-thoughts