Dislike – 28 Limerick Students Suspended For Liking “Explicit” Facebook Post

Twenty-eight students from Limerick secondary school Colaiste Chiarain were suspended last week for liking an explicit post regarding a teacher from the school. Most of the students were suspended last week for two days, while other students began their suspension today.

The post that was the subject of the investigation contained an image and text relating to the personal life of a teacher, according to the Limerick Leader.

The principal of the school in question, Mr. Noel Malone told the paper: “An issue was brought to my attention which concerned significantly inappropriate activity on a Facebook account. This happened outside the school. We investigated and to date we haven’t found the person or persons who created this website but unfortunately it brought to our attention certain breaches of our acceptable usage policy and anti-bullying policy.”

Mr. Malone approached Facebook and asked for the post to be removed, but the website failed to do so, even after repeated requests. He stressed how worried he was about the incident, commenting: “I am very, very concerned and I brought this up at a national level – why Facebook wouldn’t respond to a school and how they can feel that things like this are acceptable. Students or teachers, no matter who the community is, it certainly would give me grounds for concern.”

This latest incident with Facebook has come following a request from Principals across the country to create a liaison for the website who would deal with complaints from schools concerning cyber-bullying.

The post regarding the teacher has since been removed.