#heblowsalot

[coolestkidintheuniverse]

Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person

[dbloom]

Solid piece on the perils of corporate/political overreacting to criticism on the Interwebs. Sam Brownback's staff get bent out of shape over teen's puerile criticism of the Kansas guv, browbeat her high school principal into demanding apology. Word gets out, teen's followers skyrocket. Result: he looks like a jerk (good walk-back on his part, though, regarding staff overreaction) and she ends with four times more followers than he has. Ooops. 

As this piece sums it up: don't feed the trolls. That means develop a thick skin, and pick your fights. 

[thekinetic1-blog]

Digg This Here... High school tweeter gives Sam Brownback a political headache because heblowsalot http://ow.ly/1fSJhE

[alphamarkets-blog]

FX News High school tweeter gives Sam Brownback a political headache because heblowsalot http://ow.ly/1fSJvZ

[tellwiddit-blog]

Brownback apologizes for staff over-reaction.

[shortformblog]

I would do it again.

Kansas teen Emma Sullivan • Rejecting a demand by her high school principal that she apologize to the governor of the state, Sam Brownback, over a tweet she wrote to her friends that said, verbatim, this: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." Sullivan, who disagrees with Brownback's stance on paying for the arts, got reprimanded by her school over the tweet (at the request of the governor's office), a move that backfired and earned her thousands of followers on Twitter. Stand up for your rights, Emma!

[commodifiedsouls]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas teenager who wrote a disparaging tweet about Gov. Sam Brownback said Sunday that she is rejecting her high school principal's demand for a written apology.

Emma Sullivan, 18, of the Kansas City suburb of Fairway, said she isn't sorry and doesn't think such a letter would be sincere.

The Shawnee Mission East senior was taking part in a Youth in Government program last week in Topeka, Kan., when she sent out a tweet from the back of a crowd of students listening to Brownback's greeting. From her cellphone, she thumbed: "Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person (hash)heblowsalot."

She actually made no such comment and said she was "just joking with friends." But Brownback's office, which monitors social media for postings containing the governor's name, saw Sullivan's post and contacted the Youth in Government program.

Sullivan received a scolding at school and was ordered to send Brownback an apology letter. She said Prinicipal Karl R. Krawitz even suggested talking points for the letter she was supposed to turn in Monday.

The situation exploded after Sullivan's older sister contacted the media. Since then, Sullivan's following on Twitter has grown to about 3,000 people, up from about 65 before the tweet. She said she thinks the tweet has helped "open up dialogue" about free speech in social media..

"I would do it again," she said.

[tellwiddit-blog]

I'm kind of hoping this is a case of small-pond principal receives call from big-fish Governor's Office and feels compelled to Do Something. Maybe by Monday cooler heads will prevail?