In which our blogging hero is conflicted

Today's post regards a rather scary little story that I happened upon this weekend in The Cincy Enquirer:

Facebook prank turns bad
Taylor honor students file suit after expulsion

I'm all over the place in trying to figure out a response to this little prank.

Thought #1 comes from the teacher side of me. It terrifies me to think that a student could take one of my photos - lovingly posted here, thanks for asking - and prank up a page suggesting what are clearly pretty horrible things and that I'd have no school-based recourse to stop them. Those are the kinds of accusations that once said - even in jest - spread very quickly and head rather quickly into costing somebody their job.

It may be tough for a student person to realize how wrong such a joke can be, how horrible can be the repercussions of such a gag told in passing jest.

Thought #2 is that the interweb - no matter how much I've come to love and care for it dearly - is hugely culpable in this incident. In the past, a note might be written, a gag told in the hallways, a chuckle in the back of the classroom would've been how this gag would've gone. If the words were repeated a few times and spread 'round, there would never have been proof, never have been any tangible permanence to the rumor, and eventually it would have faded away.

With the interwebs' creation, however, that rumor gains electronic permanence and doesn't die nearly as quickly. Plus there's the anonymity of sites like Facebook (and, honestly, Blogger) in which we have no real clue who's behind these posts. Sure, lots of you know who I am, but that's because I've owned up to things offweb. I know lots of bloggers whose deeds I follow without having the foggiest clue as to who they might actually be. As long as I'm just getting a chuckle from their words, from their willingly offered observations, there's no harm, no foul.

Here, however, that anonymity has lead someone into a pretty dangerous place in which the students pretended to be their teacher - no matter how jokingly they intended the ruse. That starts to border on identity theft, and as a society we're going to need to find out how seriously we want to defend these kinds of transgressions before they get to the point where someone's identity means absolutely nothing.

Thought #3 is that it's free speech. I've enjoyed a bunch of parodies in my times - heck, Weird Al's made a career out of them - and I'm sure that some of them were things that I didn't clearly know were parodies on the first look or listen. Where do we draw that line? Where do we say "yes, parodies are okay as long as it's clearly not the original work?" Do we have to include a sticker right across the center of the Mona Lisa Simpson saying that it's not the original work?

We have the right to tell a joke, to adopt a funny voice an mimick a celebrity in the name of humor and to use the defense that "it's funny" without worrying that Big Brother throwing down and locking us up. 'Cause it is funny, you know, because it's happening to a famous person. They asked for it. They're getting rich off of our attention. They should take the joke.

But where do we draw the line?

How do we defend out right to free speech and our right to an identity?

How do we punish the act that might cause someone harm without punishing the act that doesn't cause harm?

How do we protect jokes with the punchline your mom - which are the funniest kinds of jokes, let's be honest - while still making it clear that I didn't really facebook you mom?

Not this week, anyway...

By the way, the pdf of the initial court decision in this case is absolutely fascinating reading. Please take a few minutes and read through it if I've piqued your interest in the least.

Countdown to 1000: One more to go...which would make this some kind of palindromic number, wouldn't it? This post's like the devil's number spun 'round. Could lead to some sort of accidental delivery to the wrong house in a bad comedy movie, eh?