Kansas governor tattles on teen's rude tweet

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Agence France Presse


The governor of Kansas faced an online trashing Friday for tattling on a teenaged girl who sent out a critical tweet during a visit to the state capitol.

Emma Sullivan, 18, was hauled into her principal's office and ordered to write letters of apology after one of Governor Sam Brownback's office contacted the tour organizer to complain about the offending note on the social networking site Twitter.

"Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot," Sullivan wrote, despite not saying anything to Brownback during the visit -- she said she wrote it to get a laugh out of her friends.

The principal "laid into me about how this was unacceptable and an embarrassment," Sullivan later told the Wichita Eagle.

"He said I had created this huge controversy and everyone was up in arms about it... and now he had to do damage control."

Sullivan had just 60 followers on Twitter when she wrote the offending note Monday. Two days later her story hit the local news ahead of the generally slow Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

By Friday morning, she was on CNN discussing the issue of censorship and free speech.

A lively discussion filled a dedicated Facebook page. Nearly 1,300 new people signed up to follow her Twitter feed, which until that point had been primarily devoted to her thoughts on the Twilight series and other typical teen musings.

"I'm mainly shocked that they would even see that tweet and be concerned about me," Sullivan -- who did not immediately return a request for comment -- told the paper Wednesday.

"I just honestly feel they're making a lot bigger deal out of it than it actually was."

Brownback's office regularly monitors social media for references to the Republican governor to see what his constituents are saying about him, spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag told the Eagle.

His secretary forwarded a copy of the tweet to organizers of the school-sponsored event "so that they were aware what their students were saying in regards to the governor's appearance," she said.

"We just felt it was appropriate for the organizers to be aware... because of what was said in the tweet."

Brownback's office did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

Sullivan's school was closed for the holiday, but a spokeswoman for the Shawnee Mission school district told the Eagle that officials would look into the incident on Monday.

While it became an embarrassment for her school, the heavy-handed reaction was garnering most of the criticism online.

"Good for you! How a 'small government' governor can use state resources to harass you is beyond me," one commentator wrote on Sullivan's Facebook page.

"In general," spokeswoman Leigh Anne Neal said in an e-mail "students on school-sponsored field trips, in which they are representing the school, would be expected to conduct themselves in accordance with school district policies, including use of electronic devices.

"Students may express their personal beliefs, views, and opinions, as long as they do so appropriately and in accordance with school policies."

[JoeyB]

Fascism.

I'm sure we said as much or worse about politicians when I was in high school.

It happens!

Oh and sam brownback? You like to monitor shit online? Then take note you are a fascist piece of human garbage and you need to use one of your guns to shoot yourself in the head and rid humanity of the blight that is you. Seriously, commit suicide. You have no place on this earth, nor in heaven. Hell awaits thee! Also, you suck cock and your boyfriends all think your penis is laughably small.

[Griffin]

Social networking will be the downfall of civilized society.

[DemonGeminiX]

I think civilized society has fallen already... or at the very least, did a faceplant after tripping over it's own shoelaces.

[Godfather]

I think civilized society has fallen already... or at the very least, did a faceplant after tripping over it's own shoelaces.

Maybe this is how Rome fell too.... just little things piling on slowly so nobody at the time really knew the change they were living through, until it started being just the norm for Governor's to battle teenagers, adults to shoot each other in fast-food joints and pepper-spray each other over waffle-irons on Black Friday...

[JoeyB]

Maybe this is how Rome fell too.... just little things piling on slowly so nobody at the time really knew the change they were living through, until it started being just the norm for Governor's to battle teenagers, adults to shoot each other in fast-food joints and pepper-spray each other over waffle-irons on Black Friday...

I'm gonna cut you bitch, unless you give me that waffle iron. I like vagina. I do. Sometimes, I think I like it so much I'd like to wrap it all up into one big vagina blanket and smother myself to death with it, and then let worms eat my dead ass and shit me out on the squirming vagina blanket, moist with lust and my newly minted fecal presence.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Emma Sullivan Will Not Apologize for Tweet About Sam Brownback
by Daniel Koeker - News Gather


http://i.imgur.com/ApU68.jpg

Emma Sullivan, the high school student now infamous for her tweet mentioning Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, has refused to apologize for her message, stating that she did not believe her apology would be sincere.

An 18-year-old student, she and her class took a field trip to Topeka, Kansas to see a speech by the governor. At some point during the trip, she sent the following message to Twitter: "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." According to Sullivan, it was the result of simply joking around with her friends. And she would have gotten away with it too, had it not been for those meddling... social media monitors?

Apparently, the governor's Director of Communication, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, saw the tweet during her supervision of social network mentions of the governor, and did not like it one bit. She complained to Sullivan's school, calling the tweet "disrespectful." One might expect that the school would realize how absurd such a complaint would be, and perhaps expect that they would tell the governor's office that Sullivan was well within her rights to post such a message.

However, that's not how it happened. She was called to her school's principal's office, where the principal himself demanded that she write a letter of apology to the governor. This fine demonstration of unnecessarily thin skin caught the attention of the media after Sullivan's sister reported it, and the drama began. Within days she began to see requests for appearance on media outlets, and her number of Twitter followers skyrocketed, the tweet itself being retweeted hundreds of times with still more people writing messages to Brownback complete with the #heblowsalot hash tag.

http://i.imgur.com/GY6Ix.png

Perhaps most important, however, was her decision to refuse the apology that her principal demanded of her. She expressed that she was not sorry, that she would leave the tweet on her profile, and that any apology she gave would not be sincere as a result. However, she did extend an offer to the governor for the two of them to talk and discuss her legitimate concerns, which involve her disapproval of Brownback's decision to veto the Kansas Arts Commission's entire budget.

Apparently the governor's office did not study the Streisand effect very well, as was apparent by the immediate outpouring of attention and support for Sullivan and subsequent flurry of tweets against him. Sherriene Jones-Sontag, as well as Sullivan's principal, would do well to remember that freedom of speech may occasionally involve things that are not glowing with positive reinforcement and sunshine, and that they may occasionally hurt some feelings. That this even needs reiterating is a sign that the United States' freedoms are apparently not as well-studied as they need to be. Public figures especially need to realize that they will be criticized, and anyone who does so is completely within their rights to. In this situation, one student stood up for her right to speak her mind, and a governor learned that free speech is not a beast that can be tamed.

[Joebob034]

Nearly 1,300 new people signed up to follow her Twitter feed, which until that point had been primarily devoted to her thoughts on the Twilight series and other typical teen musings.



those are what mine are mainly about

[Acid Trip]

I'll bet money that she goes to a High School in Johnson County. That's the very wealthy (and very liberal) portion of Kansas City.

[Hal-9000]

"...has refused to apologize for her message, stating that she did not believe her apology would be sincere."

I love her :lol:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

I'm on her side because she's hot :tup:

[Hal-9000]

I love that...in text no less.

I can't apologize because I wouldn't mean it....


:rofl:

[PorkChopSandwiches]

I'm on her side because she's hot :tup:

and underage ;)

[Hal-9000]

and underage ;)

:shock:

She's on twitter and facebook and making political comments, she can't be underage!!! :confused:

[Teh One Who Knocks]

and underage ;)


An 18-year-old student, she and her class took a field trip to Topeka...

:-k

[PorkChopSandwiches]

:-k

Try to explain that to RBP

[JoeyB]

Try to explain that to RBP

RBP is dating again, he is no longer a woman hater.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Teen tweeter 1, Kansas governor 0
A student won't have to apologize for tweeting that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback 'sucked.' But he has apologized for his staff's overreaction.
By Michael Muskal, Los Angeles Times

http://i.imgur.com/rDiUm.jpg

Ending a battle that could only have taken place in the brave new world of social media, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Monday apologized for an incident involving a teen who had maligned him on Twitter.

In making his mea culpa, Brownback went to the obvious place — Facebook — to post his statement. Staff members had been overzealous, he said, in their monitoring of social media's electronic public square, which is where they found Emma Sullivan's comment that the governor "sucked."

"My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize," Brownback posted. "Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms."

Sullivan, a senior at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kansas, said she was glad that Brownback had apologized but noted that he wasn't directly addressing her, just apologizing for his staff's zeal.

"I will watch what I say," Sullivan said in a telephone interview. "I mean what I say — and it is my right to say it — but I need to watch what I say."

To some liberal elements of the blogosphere, the face-off between Sullivan, 18, and Brownback, 55, a Republican former U.S. senator and 2008 presidential aspirant, was a David-versus-Goliath showdown with a touch of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington."

Sullivan's followers on Twitter increased from about five dozen to more than 11,000 in days, a rate of growth that would be the envy of any celebrity; she swamped Brownback, who has his nearly 3,300 followers. She also attracted a range of support, even offers of legal help, from those who saw the battle as one about free speech.

The incident began Nov. 21, when Sullivan attended a Youth in Government program at the state Capitol. At the event, she tweeted: "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."

In reality, she made no such comment to the governor. But staff members contacted the youth program, word eventually went downhill, and Sullivan was called to the principal's office. There, the principal told her to send Brownback a letter of apology and even suggested talking points for the note she was to hand in by a Monday deadline, Sullivan said.

Sullivan made it clear that she had no intention of apologizing to the governor.

She acknowledged that she had many political differences with Brownback, saying she's pro-choice on abortion, supports gay rights and backs arts institutions whose funds have shrunk. But politics wasn't the goal of the tweet, she said.

"I wasn't trying to accomplish anything," Sullivan said. "I don't feel like there was a victory. I'm just glad I didn't get in trouble."

By Monday morning, the Shawnee Mission School District had begun to back away from the issue. The district said in a statement that it had reviewed the events and decided to acknowledge that "a student's right to freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected."

"She is not required to write a letter of apology to the governor. Whether and to whom any apologies are issued will be left to the individuals involved," the district said.

In a nod to the temper of the times, the district also gave the kerfuffle an educational twist. "The issue has resulted in many teachable moments concerning the use of social media," the statement said. "The district does not intend to take any further action on this matter."

Brownback also offered an educational spin. He praised educators "who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum."

"Again, I apologize for our overreaction," he said.