The tweets were sent when she was between the ages of 14 and 16 and have since been deleted, but still provoked her resignation which was, ‘In the interests of everyone concerned, in particular the young people of Kent.’ Brown avoided prosecution after Kent Police said the comments in context were not ‘grossly offensive’, while Brown’s lawyers called the investigation ‘disproportionate.’
Alastair Jones, CEO of Frontier Youth Trust, said that this story, ‘Emphasised the importance of how we educate young people around their use of social media.’ He did not agree with the response to her tweet saying, ‘While the young person wrote some very unhelpful and ill-advised tweets, the story was exploded and expanded by an agenda that was politically motivated and unfortunately a young person became damaged as a result of the media campaign.’
Discussion questions:
• How much thought do you put into your online presence?
• Have you ever got into trouble for something you’ve put online?
• Is it fair to punish someone for something they posted years ago?
• What does this say about the way the country views young people?
