The Social Media Age has drastically changed how we interact with others and how we express ourselves. For example, we may connect professionally on LinkedIn, like a product or service on Facebook, or we may film videos about our thoughts and activities and post them on YouTube. These platforms were not available to us just 15 years ago.
While the Social Media Age has created tremendous new opportunities to do business, communicate with others, and express ourselves, there is also a dark side to all of this sharing and connectedness. Its plain old discrimination. According to The Daily Mail, a Texas teen was told to delete his YouTube account and other social media accounts because it showed what the school alleged stated was a "sinful" lifestyle. This so called "sinful" lifestyle was that the teenager was gay. Instead of deleting his social media accounts the student transferred to another school.
This situation is very troubling and further demonstrates the need for students to have stronger privacy protections in the Social Media Age. While it may be easy to identify a student based upon seeing them in a video uploaded to YouTube or other digital platforms, absent a student being required to authenticate their personal social media accounts it may be difficult to identify their Facebook or Twitter accounts because anyone can create a fake account.
The bottom line is that students deserve stronger personal digital legal protections in the Social Media Age and schools should not be required to become the Social Media Police. Maryland's HB 210: Educational Institutions-Personal Electronic Account-Privacy Protection which was introduced by State Senator Ronald Young would go a long way in achieving these goals. The bill would help protect the personal digital privacy of students while at the same time providing schools a legal liability shield against claims that they have a legal duty to police their students' personal digital behavior.
To support MD HB 210 I urge you to reach out to Senator Young's office for more information.
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