Social media ensnared another person this week.
This time it was a Georgia State University student so frustrated with trying to register for fall classes that he took to Facebook early Thursday to express his anger. That led to an encounter with campus police.
“I’ve officially lost track of how many times I’ve tried to register for classes. GSU, you should fear people like me. I’m a mentally (expletive)-up white guy, heard of what we do??,” read one post. He followed with a second post, “GSU #ImGonna(expletive)KillYall.” That post has since been deleted from his timeline.
Some of the student’s friends chided him on Facebook for the extreme comments, but not before they were seen by concerned parents and students who reported them to campus officials. The student was questioned by Georgia State police, and wrote a statement apologizing for the social media posts.
“At the time I was mildly frustrated, and thought this would be funny to my peers. I was wrong,” read his statement, which the AJC obtained from GSU police.
Georgia State police determined the student’s social media postings were not a criminal matter, a university spokeswoman said. The incident has been turned over to the dean of students.
Whether real threats or lapses in judgment by frustrated college students, these types of messages have taken on new heft through the public nature of social media, and can have dire consequences.
A Georgia education official who posted online about race, religion and partisan politics was fired in January. Last month, an Atlanta-based Bank of America employee was fired after posting racist comments on her Facebook page. Last year a student on Emory University's Oxford campus was arrested after posting a mass shooting threat on the social media platform Yik Yak.
