Social media provides a way to connect with friends, family, and new people. People can express themselves safely without feeling harsh judgments in response; they can be anonymous and state opinions freely. Without the need for identification that social media use makes possible, and which many see as essential for their identity and social life, people can feel limited in their speech. Speech through social media can provide people a way to communicate who feel restricted in their face-to-face speech. Therefore, school officials should not punish students for what they post on non-school social media sites, unless the speech is bullying another student or teacher, or causes disturbances in school.

Students need a place where they feel safe to express themselves, an outlet like social media. Students should feel like they won’t be punished for voicing opinions on social media, as long as they are not harmful to others or engaging in cyberbullying. In The Atlantic, an article reports that while some officials are working towards combatting cyberbullying, “others punish students whose only offense is posting an online comment that the school doesn’t like” (Atlantic). Invading the privacy of a student on the grounds that they made a comment the school didn’t like is not justified, but in many cases students have been unjustly punished for making harmless comments on non-school social media. One student was suspended because their post “made the principal ‘uncomfortable.’” (Wheeler).

While freedom-of-speech rights are often said to be upheld in schools, the online version is another story. Instead of seeing online and in-person speech as different, they should be treated with the same laws. If school officials started to “listen in on chatter at students’ private gatherings with friends, or rifle through their private videos and photo albums,” then people would see that as a problem and complain (Wheeler). But, how is doing that different from snooping in on students’ digital lives? Snooping would lead to no social media privacy or safety from school punishment. No means to express feelings about what goes on in school. No freedom of speech.

Students should feel free online and on social media, but when expressing opinions turns into harming another student, teacher, or school employee, freedom has been abused and is no longer acceptable. Bullying occurs when a person harasses or teases another person for an extended period of time and causes unwanted exclusion, which is meant to lower self-esteem, cause pain, or make a person feel insecure, sad, uncomfortable, and left out. Cyberbullying includes all of these characteristics, except instead of occurring in-person, the bullying occurs online. Cyberbullying differs from harmlessly posting on social media. One hurts another person, and the other is a means of expression. 

A procedure should be put in place for how school officials make decisions about investigating a student's online life. First, a school official should make sure they have enough evidence that an act of cyberbullying has been or could be occurring. This can be discovered if a student, parent, or teacher has made a complaint. If a school official has not been approached with information about a student’s possible or definite harmful activity, then they should not be allowed to investigate. If an act of cyberbullying is found, then the proper punishment can be given by school officials. In the case Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools (2011), a senior in high school named Kara created a MySpace page to mock and bully another peer. Many students from the school joined the “hate website,” which was called “Students Against Shay’s Herpes.” Shay’s parents filed a complaint with the school about the MySpace page, which led to a school examination of the website and the punishment of Kara Kowalski. Because evidence was found and a complaint was made to the school about the alleged cyberbullying, the investigation of Kara’s MySpace page was justified. The school officials stopped an act of cyberbullying by using a proper and justified procedure of investigation (Chiquillo).

Speech that is vulgar or seems to pose a legitimate threat to learning and activities is not allowed in schools. However, when neither vulgarity nor disruption are factors in online speech on either non-school or school social media sites, schools do not have a reason to stop students from posting. The Tinker Standard states that speech that is not causing disturbances in school and does not seem like it would cause any in the future is viewed as free speech (Tinker).

Disruption is not the only concern. The Fraser Standard states that speech that is vulgar, sexual, or crude in school is not viewed as free speech (Tinker). Therefore, online postings on social media that are not vulgar or causing disturbances are viewed as free speech, and school officials have no right to punish students for what they post.
Often schools misinterpret whether or not speech is government (public) or private. In an article from The Washington Post, a group of cheerleaders was banned from using religious speech on their banners. However, the school failed to understand that

There is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect (Mateer).
The cheerleaders were a private, not a social-sponsored group. Private speech is protected by law, and when students post on their personal social media sites, private speech not public speech is in play.

If speech made by a student on non-school social media is not cyberbullying, causing disturbances, or vulgar, school officials should not be allowed to inflict punishment for what is posted. Speech made by students on social media sites is not only private, but should be protected from school officials’ viewing it unessesarily. If your school started snooping around on your personal social media sites without your permission, would you find it acceptable?
Without room for expression, students feel trapped inside their own minds. Limitations in expression could lead to a lack of creativity, low self-confidence, and diminished self-esteem, which could then cause many future problems with social skills and self-image and understanding. This is a problem because understanding oneself, and having a positive self-image and self-esteem are some of the essentials to being happy. Students need a safe place to voice their opinions and be themselves, a place with the comfort of knowing that they are protected from being judged and punished. Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, and Instagram are outlets for expressing not only students’ identity, but for their right to freedom-of-speech, and these outlets should be shielded from the destruction school officials could cause.