Slightly Off-Topic, RE: Rutger's student suicide shows how dangerous the internet is.....

Please, if anything it shows how hurtful people can be....but we already knew that. While, I mean no disrespect to the family, friends, and loved ones of Tyler Clementi, this is not a proper event to use as a call to arms for internet regulation. For those of you not familiar with the story you can Google it, but basically the young man committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington bridge after he was recorded in his dorm being intimate with another man and this recording was broadcast using a internet service.

Now despite what some may think. The internet was not out to get this youngman and did not maliciously search him out and plant the camera in his room then broadcast it. No, this was perpitrated by his roommate, who did it either out of malice or perhaps boredom. As it seems people need to be reminded so often that the internet is a tool, and as a tool the potential for misuse is always present and the ethics of the matter are left to the users.

While I do abhore the fact that this persons privacy was violated in such an extreme way, we need to focus on punishing those individuals responsible instead of pushing the responsibility onto the internet. We as Americans need to begin taking responsibility for our own actions. We have cultivated such a culture of blame that it paralyzes us from actually being able to solve problems and move forward. The person actually responsible is being charged with a felony which I think is more than appropriate. Although I am saddened at the loss of life and that those responsible did not have the decency to let this man be, we are all in the end responsbile for our own actions.

I applaud the family of Mr. Clementi for having the strength of character and wish them the best.