Here’s an interesting internet case. An 8th grade student was suspended from school for “cyber-bullying” and humiliating another student online in a YouTube video. Her parents took the school to court and last month a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled that the school had gone too far. Students do have a 1st Amendment right to be nasty in cyberspace. Implications for internet ministry:
Response: Remember that ruling when you get the next offensive comment or someone responds negatively to something you’ve said online. Worse of all for Pastors, many are now finding that former members of their congregation are writing negative stuff about their church and even about them personally online.
Several pastors and Christian leaders have suffered false allegations from folks that for what ever reason just want to make them look bad. I know of one leader who did fall in one area of his life and is in the process of being disciplined, healed, and mentored by others but now there is all sorts of false speculations and untrue allegations circulating about him on the net. It is now ‘open season’ on this brother as one blog after another piles on making his restoration all that more difficult if even possible.
At the present time there seems to be no recourse except to respond online with a denial. Sometimes the internet is like the ‘wild west’ use to be and ministries need to do a search and check out what folks are saying about them every once in a while just to keep on top of it all.
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