A police officer's talk on internet safety outraged an auditorium of high school students in Windsor, Colorado on Tuesday, when he made examples of students' actual MySpace pages without asking them first.
John F. Gay III was trying to teach the students about how easily pedophiles can access personal information posted on MySpace and similar sites - which, I think we can all agree, is an important lesson. But the students and their parents think he crossed the line when he referred to one girl's page as "slutty," and told another girl that he showed her page to a prisoner, who then masturbated to her picture. When that student fled the room crying, Officer Gay called her, with a phone number he had found on the internet.
Now, maybe Officer Gay went a little too far when he painted a picture of a convicted sex offender jerking off to some poor high school girl's photo - but on the other hand, would anything less shocking have gotten through to these kids?? And these teens are at risk - they're posting a lot of personal info on their web pages, which makes them vulnerable to online predators. Would a straightforward presentation with a few bullet points on a blackboard have driven the point home as effectively?
