I’ve posted before about how teenagers may be tempted to share a little too openly on social networking sites like MySpace. Today’s St. Paul Pioneer Press provides a good example in an article headlined Teen in fatal crash shuns cops in favor of MySpace. The 18-year-old woman being investigated made comments on her MySpace page that the police are now hoping to use against her. An excerpt (from the Pioneer Press article—her MySpace has since been removed):

I just want to let everyone know August 19 2006 Joe Renner and Joe Shafer died and me and Samatha were hurt. I’m sure a lot of you really don’t give a (expletive) about me. Fine whatever you have your reasons I don’t blame you but really think about it. Both of them knew what they were getting in to. Yes it’s my fault because I was the driver but think about how many of you did what I did. … Now don’t get me wrong I take full responsability (sic) for everything that happened, but when you sit and say everything your (sic) saying think about what you probley (sic) did the day before that or maybe that night. You all take that risk. I never though it was gonna happen to me and it did. I learned from that I lost two very good friends of mine and a lot of people did.

Whether the D.A. can make her online “confession” stick is anybody’s guess. If you need a case study to use when talking with students about posting online, this may be one to include.

myspace, online privacy