What if a student posted a message like this to a website: "I wonder if i could shut down the school ... by saying I´m going to shoot as many people as i can in my second class tomorrow. I hope I get more than 50........... For liability reasons and ip tracking I won´t leave it at that. But seriously, this site is rediculous, if it got big, and someone put the effort into writing a big long serious suicide note informing all readers that he would kill over 100 kids, they could shut down the school. Nice."
Actually, a student at Colgate University did. He was arrested. See "Colgate U. Student's Violent Message to a Gossip Web Site Leads to His Arrest", March 12/08, Chronicle of Higher Education See also http://www.uticaod.com/homepage/x1993297520 where it's reported that a search of the student's apartment turned up nothing except a small amount of cocaine traced to the student's roommate. He was also arrested. They failed to arrest the posting student for the crime of poor spelling. But nota bene, the Chronicle quotes Colgate's vice-president for public relations as saying "In today´s day and age, you need to take every perceived threat seriously...You can´t assume anything just because it´s written in such a way that it´s not serious." Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of the psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
