Comments about ‘Educate youths on tech etiquette’

Not so much in this editorial, but I take offense to the 'boys will be boys' argument and the parental 'take no responsibility, blame it on the school' mentality. What these boys did was wrong, regardless of whether or not they were actually able to do it. Criminally wrong? Not at that age, but wrong nonetheless. Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.

Crazy! I agree with this editorial!

Boys have been looking at and showing each other pictures of naked women for as long as pictures have been around. Its the sign of a healthy and normal boy.

The real story here is not the kids, but that adults no longer have the common sense they used to have.

If laws dealing with sexual conduct can't be administered using common sense, then its time to get rid of these laws.

Vermont is considering decriminalizing sexting. Given the lack of common sense that todays officials around the country lack in exercising common sense, what Vermont is doing makes sense.

I'm very uneasy about employing the idea of bad "etiquette" to describe the deliberate action of boys seeking to circumvent a filter to gain access to pornography at school, if this is what occurred.

Pornography is,on the other hand, freely available to adults 'up to a point', as far as I understand so felony charges seem "over the top". If it were 'child porn', however, that would be different as that is understandably treated more seriously.

I do remember a boy at my school, back in the day, who was expelled for writing a sex story for English composition. Expulsion meant, I should add, never ever returning to the school.

I am lost somewhere in between agreeing with the poster who said that merely arguing that "boys will be boys" is inadequate, and the need to recognise that something should be done about what might rapidly become a serious problem at schools. I am sick of hearing excuses made for minors and women when they do something wrong.

There should be a meaningful punishment, in my view that stops short of felony charges, but is far more than just a 'slap on the wrist'.

What these boys did required intelligence and technical savvy. Punish them yes, but don't charge them with felonies.

It didn't take much savvy. The didn't even use a proxy server. They just typed lesbian into the search engine image viewer.

You can get around filters by typing in words in foregn language for pornography. There were a few kids in the school I taught at who figured this out. They didn't have possible charges though, they did have all internet priveledges revoked for the rest of their schooling. That seems more reasonable. The way the school reacted to this is unhealthy, even if junior high students checking out some girl on girl is healthy is up for debate.

The school went WAY over board. Utah's policy on being able to charge a minor for showing his buddies porn. It's not an act of a sexual predator... It's been happening for since print was invented.

It's not right and that is what suspension is for, calling the parents, but to have the child arrested... that is completely uncalled for.