A week after the terrorizing shootings at Sandy Hook, a principal announced over the loud speaker different rules and regulations along with modifications to security to ensure the student's safety, one student found this all very unnecessary and comical and chose to broadcast his outlandish views to the Twitter world. I found this article very interesting because it focuses on a playful yet slightly vindictive set of a few tweets drastically changing a 16 year old from Miami's entire life. Austin Bowlin chose to tweet from his cellphone during school that he was going to “shoot up the school this Friday. Prepare yourself” and that he was “making a list and checking it twice. We’re about to see who gets shot up real nice,” according to an arrest report. He also wrote: “Yeah a bunch of little kids died. I could care less. And my school announced it like matters. safe? I could shoot this school up easily.” once arrested, no weapons were found and it was made clear that he was messing around but the police force and the families of all children who attended the high school most definitely did not find it as funny. no one realizes how much what you say online affects your real life until its too late. no one acknowledges who their audience is online and will never know who sees what they're posting until the wrong person sees it and runs with it.
://www.miamiherald.com/2012/12/18/3147196/miami-lakes-teen-arrested-for.html
Julie, this article is actually very scary to think about. I think that social media has let people make threats more visible but i think social media is good because now it is more easy to access and see what these people are threatening. I don't think it should matter if this boy was kidding because threats like that should be taken seriously because you never know if that person is going to do it or not. It is kind of shocking to think that someone would say something like that so publicly.
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