Well, you can't say they weren't warned.
Thirty-three students at a Jewish girl's school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn ponied up a $100 each after they were stone-cold busted using Facebook. This, after signing a contract with Beis Rivkah High School this year in which they agreed to not use the social network, the New York Daily News reports.
“It’s not a modest thing for a Jewish girl — or man or woman or student or father to be on," head administrator Rabbi Benzion Stock told the New York Daily News. "There is a lack of privacy and dignity."
The decree is in keeping with Tzniut, a group of laws emphasizing modesty and humility, and observed within the Orthodox Jewish community. Beis Rivkah is a Hasidic school, but this isn't the first time Facebook, modesty and private schools have clashed.
St. Theresa’s College High School in Cebu City in the Philippines barred a senior from participating in her class's graduation ceremony on Friday because she posted a bikini-clad photo of herself on Facebook.
According to Cebu Daily News , the girl was "cited for violating five provisions in the [St. Theresa’s College High School ] Student Handbook" which include a rule against "posing and uploading pictures on the Internet that entail ample body exposure," and "engaging in immoral, indecent, obscene or lewd acts."
The crackdown at Beis Rivkah High School came last week after administrators discovered some of their 495 students still active on Facebook, according to the New York Daily News. Head administrator Stock said parents were "shocked" to learn their daughters were still using the social network.
One sophomore who said she's Facebook friends with her mom, isn't happy with the crackdown. “If I post a picture, I don’t just send it to everybody," Sarah Freid, 15, told the New York Daily News. "I don’t do bad things online,” she added. “I’m friends with my mom.”
All 33 girls were asked to delete their accounts by the end of the week, but they'll get their $100 back at the end of the year.
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.
