Censorship is the Responsibility of Teachers

All around the world people use the ever-popular social media sites in order to connect with the digital world around them. This makes perfect sense because the world around us is turning into a place where it’s acceptable to put anything you want on your social media site, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, to name just a few. It’s the way that people are choosing to communicate with their friends and family these days. However, what if you put something on one of your accounts that was considered to be unacceptable by your employer? What if you lost your job over it? Is that fair? What about your constitutional right to the freedom of speech? Shouldn’t digital media sites be a part of this right? Unfortunately, for many employed people this doesn’t appear to be the case. People are losing their jobs over what they decide to share on the internet. It seems like they are constantly being watched.That doesn’t seem right does it?

           In the case of teachers, I disagree with my last sentence. I think that teachers need to be held at much higher standards than many other professions due to the fact that they should be role models for the thousands of students they will teach over their career. I believe that it is the responsibility of teachers to provide their own censorship for what they put on the various social media sites. Teachers are responsible for the growth and development of our future generations. Where will students turn if they see inappropriate content from social media sites that belong to their teachers? What will they think?

            In my opinion, teachers are people that students should look up to. I always did, and still do to some extent. (Well at least for the teachers that I liked). Teachers have a responsibility to their students, both in the real world, and also the digital one. Actually, especially the digital one since what you put on there will likely be there forever.

            While I do believe that censorship of social media sites, to an extent, is a violation of our constitutional rights, I think that teachers have a responsibility for their own censorship of their media sites. I don’t think that it is necessarily fair for them to lose their job over what they decide to write on social media sites, however they still wrote it there. In my opinion, if some teachers are writing these terrible statements on social media sites, they probably would have said it to someone’s face as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s written down or said vocally, the teacher still meant their comment all the same.

           Teachers need to constantly be aware of the world around them. They have a responsibility for the censorship of their comments online. It is not worth writing something stupid online. There are too many consequences that can go with that, such as the cone of shame.