In late February, two cases of threats made through MySpace accounts took place at high schools.

The first took place in Orlando, Florida, where a 15 year-old sent out a threat to over 1,700 of his friends via his MySpace account. The FBI was called in to questions the student of his online posting. WESH.com reported the message sent out stated that a student at one local high was going to be shot by a student at another local high school.

The 15 year-old student’s who’s MySpace was used to sent the message claimed he did not send the message. The student was not immediately expelled, but it is believed that expulsion could be the charge.

In a similar story from Belleville, Illinois, another 15 year-old male was arrested for threats made on a MySpace account. This student was immediately expelled for the threats, unlike the other case. STLtoday.com reported that consequences where taken immediately because of the large amount of threats going on around the world today.

A recent intern at Anglo Irish Bank, was fired due to a photo posted on his Facebook.

Kevin Colvin emailed his bosses late in the day of Halloween, letting them know he would not be able to attended work due to a family emergency in New York. When his boss, Paul Davis, received the email the following day he checked his interns Facebook, and what did he find:

Davis responed to his intern with the following message:

“Thanks for letting me know–hope everything is OK in New York. (cool wand)” -ValleyWag.com

Colvin did not really have any family emergency which he needed to be in attendance of, but wanted to party it up on Halloween.

The email thread between Kevin Colvin and his boss Paul Davis are now being emailed around the internet, really hurting Colvin’s online reputation. This is another case of careless postings on Facebook leading to being fired or in other forms of trouble.

Slippery Rock University

In a recent story at Slippery Rock University, pictures posted on a track runners Facebook could lead to suspensions for her and teammates. During a tournament which took place over spring break, Tiffany Tedesco, a 19 year old freshman, posted pictures of her and teammates drinking and having a good time in their hotel room.

SRU, like many colleges and universities today, have several rules pertaining to student-athletes social network posting. The SRU Athletic Departments policy on online social networks states that, the posting of “incriminating photos or statements depicting hazing, sexual harassment, vandalism, stalking, underage drinking, illegal drug use or other inappropriate behavior will be subject to disciplinary action by the Head Coach and/or Director of Athletics if they gain knowledge of such violations.”

Slippery Rock University

Paul Lueken, SRU’s athletic director said the students will be punished based on the departments three strike policy. The three strike policy was put into place for athletes who miss a percentage of games or practices or are in any other violations will be kicked out.

“The players found to be involved will be suspended from the Maryland Invitational (on) March 29,” Lueken said. “Those involved will also be receiving a strike, and after three strikes, they are out.”

Tiffany said she posted the pictures without looking through them, and removed them immediately after noticing that some pictures were inappropriate.

“I forgot to look at the pictures before I posted them,” Tedesco said Wednesday afternoon. “It was a mistake and I’m deleting them.”

The pictures depict over 8 members of the men’s and women’s track team, all of whom may receive punishment for the pictures.

At Ryerson University, academic administrators are handing out 147 academic charges for a study group hosted on Facebook.

The university is charging freshman Chris Avenir, a computer engineering student, with one count of academic misconduct for starting and running the group, and an additional 146 counts for each student in the group. Chris also has to appear before a committee on the possibility of being expelled, reports The Star.

The study group was used for students to share tips to help solve the chemistry problems worth 10 percent of their grade. Chris received a B in the class last fall, but after the professor found the Facebook group, changed his grade to an F.

Kim Neale, 26, the student union’s advocacy coordinator, says students are now scared to discuss anything related to their classes on Facebook:

“All these students are scared s—less now about using Facebook to talk about schoolwork, when actually it’s no different than any study group working together on homework in a library.”

The group was created solely to allow students to provide tips and guidance on problems, not for cheating and the sharing of answers. Students at Ryerson argue that if this study group is not allowed, then any form of study group can be cause for misconduct and tutoring must also be a form of academic dishonesty.

“Yet students argue Facebook groups are simply the new study hall for the wired generation.”

Student study groups have been part of college forever. Typically a small group of students would get together to share insights and provide help to others who may not be grasping a topic as fast. Now that the internet allows students to do this with more students at once, and faster, it is the new study group, and does not call for academic charges, suspensions or anything similar.

Two students at Clark High School in Texas are being charged with accusations over the creation of a false MySpace page for the schools assistant principal. Reported by MySA.com, the students created a page that was filled with lewd, defamatory and obscene comments, pictures and graphics.

Anna Draker, the assistant principal, is suing both students, and their parents for:

“defamation, libel, negligence and negligent supervision over a page on the popular Web site MySpace.com.”

The MySpace students also falsely posted her sexual orientation as a “lesbian” and were filled with comments sexual comments by others pertaining to the graphics and information on the page.

The school reported they have little control over cases of this form, as they can be done away from school. In the law suit she is suing for money for damages of emotional distress and more, but the attorney stated the case is more about teaching a lesson.

MySpace did remove the page immediately after being contacted by Draker. Steve Jones, author of “CyberSociety” who has written extensively on Internet use had this to say about the case:

“This is the most serious, most concerted effort that I’ve seen a teacher or a school administrator undertake involving a posting on MySpace. This is pretty remarkable,” he said. “I think a lot of people will be watching this.”

In cases like this in the past, most students are usually suspended or possibly expelled.

Not only can you get into trouble with schools or employers for what you post on you Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or blog, but now it can be used as evidence for police.

Last year in riot at the University of Massachusetts, campus police arrested 34 people, 31 of whom were students. A total of 57 people where charged for violences during the riot.

If you were able to escape the police before they showed up, you could still have been charged. Police told reports from the DailyCollegian.com, that they used security cameras from the area, as well as cell phone videos posted on students Facebooks and MySpaces, and YouTube. Since the police could not see everything that was going on, this was there only way to catch everyone.

“We have no intentions of stopping until we’ve identified every single rock thrower and every single person who is responsible for the damage,” Archbald said in a Jan. 25 interview. He said detectives used video footage from campus cameras and from YouTube.com, photos from cell phone cameras, facebook.com and MySpace.com in an effort to identify the accused.

School disciplinary actions ended with 5 expulsions, 28 suspensions, and 22 differed suspensions.

The riot occurred following a football game, in which UMass lost to Appalachian State 28-17. Over 1,800 students gathered at the schools Southwest Plaza, rioting and throwing rocks. Several police offers where injured and around $100,000 in damages were reported.

A high school student in Canada was recently kicked out for school for cyber-bullying on the social network Facebook.com. The student had setup a group about high schools vice-principle, where students posted derogatory comments about the vice-principle.

The Globe.com, reported 5 students, including the creator of the group Brad Parsons, where each suspended. Brad Parsons has yet to hear from the school what his punishment would be, but the other 4 students each received suspensions ranging from 4 to 20 days.

The school has a zero-tolerance policy concerning cyber-bullying. Facebook does not allow these condone type of groups on their network. Due to the large network of Facebook though, they do not have the time to check every group. They expect their users to have good judgment when in these situations, and they do have a “report” link where users can reports situations of cyber-bullying, spam and others.

Facebook’s chief privacy officer Chris Kelly had this to say:

“We’ve made a decision as a host of this information to not allow those types of personal attacks, (and) we deter them by expecting accountability. But we also have terms of service that allow us to remove those from the site, and when those are reported, we do that.”

Other students started a rally in the days following the suspensions which turned violent. Four students were taken away by police officers. Charges from the students range from obstructing a peace officer and assault with a weapon. The students contend that this is a breach of their freedom of speech.

Hear about the students who where expelled for a Facebook study group? How about the guy who got denied acceptance to a college because he posted dispargering coments about the school? Or the high school students suspended for posting pictures of themselves getting drunk on MySpace? At MyNaym.com you can find the latest news on people getting suspended, denied or fired from a job, expelled, etc., for postings and pictures they have made on MySpace, Facebook, blogs or any other online website.

Have a funny or horrible story about yourself or a friend getting into trouble? Contact us with your story and we’ll share it with everyone!