NEWS
GHS INSTAGRAM ACCOUNTS CAUSE DRAMA
BY CADEN MCDERMOTT n these past few months, it has become a trend on Instagram for students to create accounts showcasing the antimaskers, public displays of affection and sleeping students of Granville High School. These accounts have instigated drama and multiple lengthy arguments in the comments of their posts, and now the school has decided to step in. The full list of these accounts includes ghs_slumps, ghs. anti_maskers, ghs_fitchecks, ghs_bathroomshoes, bad_ posture_ghs and ghs_pda. Each of these accounts have quickly amassed over 200 followers. On January 14, principal Matthew Durst released a Schoology message regarding the accounts, which effectively established that it was against the code of conduct to take or post pictures of students and staff on school property without consent. “Within minutes of putting out that Schoology message we saw posts from the anti-maskers account come down,” Durst said. “There were also a few that deleted the whole account.” The owners of ghs_pda and bad_posture_ghs did not want to risk receiving any sort of disciplinary action from the school and made the decision to delete their accounts. However, it is not that simple for the school to do something about these pages. “If someone posts something outside of school, not at a school event, there's nothing the school can do about that, but if it impacts the educational environment then the school can intervene,” Durst said. “It is hard to determine what impacts the educational environment. It is a grey area.” The main issue with these accounts is that many of the people are not giving their consent to being photographed and having their picture posted. “Some may see these posts as funny, but the consent to take the picture makes a huge difference,” Durst said. The most popular of these accounts, with 470 followers, is ghs_slumps, which features students sleeping in school. It was the first of these accounts to be made. “I didn’t really mind being on there,” said senior Cameron Harris, who has been on ghs_slumps four times.“I thought it was funny. It is a much needed breath of fresh
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Two popular accounts are ghs.anti_maskers and ghs_slumps. Screenshots: Instagram
air around the school.” The ghs.anti_maskers account has an alternative motive for their posts. Rather than posting pictures of students for laughs and a few likes, this account is attempting to shame and expose students for not properly wearing their masks. “I could not care less about them posting a picture of me,” senior Bobby Vahalik said. Ghs_slumps highlights how overworked and overstressed students have become, so many kids feel so tired that an Instagram account was made to document them. The Instagram accounts are not all bad in the eyes of the school; some accounts are still seen as positive, even from the point of view of Durst. “I do not want to make an absolute statement that all of these accounts are bad, like on the fit checks one it looks like everyone knows that a picture is being taken of them,” Durst said. “That is a very different story from a creeper picture from across a classroom where the other person doesn’t know that it's being taken."
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