Brenda Holleman was stunned and sickened when she saw the supposedly funny "burn book" her daughter had heard about at school and looked up on the Web.
For every Wake County high school, there were entries describing girls, and some boys, as sluts, nuts and worse. Far worse.
"Oh, Lord," said Holleman, who works in mental health, "some kid's going to commit suicide because of this."
When the Wake County school system learned about the Web site (I'm such a blabbermouth), its communications office sent an immediate letter to the Web host, called Weebly, asking for the site to be taken down immediately.
Remarkably, Weebly agreed. Within days, the Web site had been removed.
"We were pleasantly surprised," said Michael Evans, director of communications for Wake schools.
Evans was surprised because Web hosts are under little obligation to remove offensive content, no matter who's complaining. Under Weebly's published rules, a John Doe lawsuit would normally need to be filed against the host and the issue would have to wend its way through the courts before Weebly would be required to remove any content.
Evans and other school administrators are not celebrating their victory just yet.
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