Not content to let Michigan School Officials naysay about the dangers of blogging (as reported here on Feb 11), Michigan State police have joined in the blog bashing fun warning that blogs could result in kiddies going to jail.
Lt. Tim Lee, Michigan State Police Department warns:” [Kiddies] can say horrible things about a principal or horrible things about their parents, or horrible things about the kid next door, and they feel like no one’s going to find them..But what kids often don’t realize is that saying horrible things about a person on the internet could get them into trouble with the law.”
But not content with warning off kiddies from using name calling on blogs, Lee goes one further: “That person goes out there, reads the posting and says, yeah I’m nervous about this, or I feel uncomfortable, I’m afraid for my life. They contact law enforcement, and that’s when we get involved…If we can identify those individuals, and there’s enough information to believe that person’s threat is accurate, that person could actually carry out that threat, then that is a threat that would be prosecuted.”
What’s even more bizarre, is that WLNS.com news reports that blogging is a serious problem, but authorities “are still playing catch up… State police don’t have enough resources and even psychologists are grappling with this issue.”
Yikes! Has blogging become the new platform for evil in the 21st Century? Should Michigan State Police be creating a dedicated Blogging squad to trawl for hate blogs instead of dealing with less important crimes like murder and rape?
The answer, it seems, is yes, in Lee’s words: “It’s actually become a psychological phenomenon.”
