January 7, 2014

#MeanTweets and online privacy

Posted on Tuesday, January 07, 2014 by theblankness

Today, as the polar vortex hits Southern Ontario, many people experienced horrible delays getting to work and commuting in general. In addition, with freezing rain on Monday, sidewalks became skating rinks and there were some dangerous conditions on the roads. The conditions were also quite rough on Twitter with #MeanTweets.

A few students in Toronto were quite aggravated as schools were not closed today. These students took to Twitter to let the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) how they felt. After a derogatory tweet from a student, the TDSB's official Twitter account responded with this.


The TDSB did highlight an important point in online privacy. What you say is open to everyone using the internet. Also, once it is on the internet, it will be there forever. If you say something online, you should make sure that it is something that you will take responsibility for. This is not to deter anyone's freedom of speech but to highlight how being rude and disrespectful can be come back and haunt you. The TDSB also found the student's school, most likely through a simple Facebook search as it was open to the public.

Many other students also tweeted the TDSB, some being praise for their actions and other more judgemental. The TDSB also said this, "We get that people want to complain. We ask people do it respectfully. We are all human and deserving of that. #bekind."


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