Teachers are responding to harassment and to student fight videos being posted to social networking sites like YouTube. The teachers are calling for a shutdown of such sites:

“Teachers have called for websites such as YouTube to be shut down as part of efforts to prevent pupils and staff being bullied.

Delegates at the conference of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) said bullying can continue outside school and work hours.”

link: Teachers in websites closure call

While the teachers’ association has legitimate concerns, to call for a closure of such sites distracts from a ‘real solutions’ approaches to the issues. Such sites as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and other similar websites are not going to go away in the foreseeable future. They are immensely popular and generate huge amounts of traffic. And that traffic translates into income.

Catherine Forsythe

[tags]YouTube, social networking sites, Facebook, MySpace, harassment, security, schools[/tags]