When asked what advice she had for college students in an interview with The Minaret, Jane Castor, Tampa’s New Police Chief replied that with the change in technology, students need to exercise good judgment in what they do on a daily basis because it can and will catch up with them.
The Minaret is both a print-newspaper as well as theminaretonline.com. Our website has a global readership since it was first launched in late spring of 2006.
When recruiting writers we tell them that their work for the staff is not only noticed by the campus community but the world. As our writers conduct interviews it is their duty to tell the person they are interviewing that they are writers for The Minaret. What is said will be published in print and online.
The reason for this is not solely based on our jobs as reporters to get the information from sources, but it is to shed light on the piece of advice that Chief Castor gave to this generation of students. Who thought it would come to the day that “Big Brother” would be watching you?
This isn’t new to most of us. Facebook, Twitter and the multitude of other social networking sites are running rampant and students aren’t realizing the harm that can be done with the things they post and say. Sure this has been said, but until the time comes ten years down the road when students become more vigilant of what they do, they’ll regret what happened ten years earlier.
If anyone does find something disturbing in their past that was documented online, it isn’t as simple as clicking the delete. Everyone seems to have some sort of social networking site because it seems to be the easiest way to stay in touch with friends.
The world continues to become a smaller place. The internet has connected the world and anything on the web can be reached by most. Cultures have been reconnected from other sides of the globe.
People’s personal and virtual identities have merged. A derogatory e-mail or a risqué photo can stain one’s reputation like a scarlet letter. Young people have always behaved foolishly, but never before has one’s adolescence and early adulthood been recorded to this degree.
It’s imperative that students use a little common sense with what they publish online, be it an article, a photo or a comment.