Catholic school nixes blogging

Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, N.J., has "ordered its students … to remove personal postings about the school or themselves from Web sites like MySpace.com or Xanga.com," Newsday reports. After a blogging incident in which a student thought he was "talking" to a peer and wasn't, the school held an assembly for all 900 students to "reinforce the online rules." This rule had been on the books for years, but now it's being strictly enforced - for protection, not censorship, the school said. The Electronic Frontier Foundation told Newsday it had seen several efforts by private institutions around the US to restrict students' "Internet postings," but this was the first "overreaction" the EFF had heard of, adding that it would be better to talk with students about what is and isn't safe online. Students at this school who don't comply could be suspended. [Thanks to BNA Internet Law for pointing this story out.] For more on this, see "Teacher to parents: Be wary of teen blogs" and "MySpace: The new MTV." And here's a local perspective (and primer) on teen blogging from the Wausau [Wisc.] Daily Herald.