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26 March, 2005 Chatmag News.

Jeff Weise, the teenager who shot and killed 9 people at Red Lake High School, Minnesota, had also been a poster in several Nazi related discussion forums.

It is far too easy to blame the technology rather than the motives of a disturbed individual.  Chat rooms and discussion forums number in the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, and cover every topic imaginable, and some beyond belief. A joint program (1) in Australia and The United Kingdom uses chat rooms to facilitate communications between medical personnel. There are hundreds of examples of chat and discussion forums helping those in need.

The technology, chat and forums, is morally neutral. They exist as computer programs designed to facilitate human communications.  It is the individual postings by real people that should be held accountable, rather than the means of communication.

In Jeff Weise's case, there was more than the postings on a discussion board that was wrong in his life.  He had problems with depression, and was taking Prozac, the dosages recently being upped.  There was a suicide attempt by him last year.  When he was 8 years old, his father committed suicide in a police stand off.  His mother suffered brain damage in an alcohol related vehicle accident.

The Red Lake Indian Reservation in Northern Minnesota is an isolated community, with a high unemployment rate.  The main source of income is a casino owned and operated by the tribe.

Many factors contributed to the shootings.  Depression, medications, the poverty of an Indian Reservation.  To point the finger at postings Jeff made on several discussion forums ignores the real causes.

Jeff Weise belonged to the wired generation, those under 35 (give or take a few years)  that have integrated The Internet into their daily lives. They post on 'Blogs, use Instant Messaging, and participate in chat rooms and discussion forums.  Virtually every teenager has an email account, an IM program, and several community and game web sites that they visit on a regular basis.

One of the contributing factors is Reservation life.  With high unemployment, rampant alcoholism, and domestic abuse, what chance does a teenager have to grow into responsible adulthood?

How is it that in recent weeks, one of the major fast food chains announced that they are outsourcing their drive-in window ordering to a firm in India?

Our message to McDonalds, and to those other businesses taking their call centers and help desks overseas; you're outsourcing to the wrong Indians. There is a whole Internet savvy generation ready and able to work right here on our Reservations.

--Chatmag News Staff--

External Links.

(1) PC World.  Late night chat set to save lives.

(2) Chatmag's School Shootings Discussion Forum.

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