MySpace Helping Students Organize Walkouts

(CBS 11 News) It is well known that students are using popular internet sites to organize classroom walkouts that protest immigration legislation. School district workers knew this immediately. Students admit to using blog sites like MySpace to join together.

It appears to be a grassroots campaign lead by students, but many suspect that adults are behind the protests.

?They?re very good at text messaging. We really think that?s something that goes on,? said Mac Bernd, Superintendent of the Arlington Independent School District. ?We?re also quite sure there were adults outside student circles that probably, in some way or another, got this thing started.?

What some don?t realize is just how much the MySpace culture affects a student.

To see firsthand, go online and look for the number of hits the walkouts have received: 90,000 on ?immigration walkout? just in Texas.

Lori Varnell is a prosecutor and an expert on sites like MySpace. She says the website is like a telephone for this generation.

?They talk about their schools on MySpace. They talk about anything going on in their lives on MySpace. Raves, parties, whatever. It?s on there. That?s where they communicate,? said Varnell.

She continued, ?More so than the news or schools or anything else, those kids are getting their information from those blog rings. So, someone puts something on the blog ring and those kids just soak it up. So, it?s a great place to influence kids.?

There is little doubt that adult led groups fired up concern about immigration, but who was it?

There is really no way to tell, and those who are computer savvy can make certain that nobody ever finds out.

The internet works both ways though. Already, other MySpace bloggers are calling for protests against the protestors.

(CBS 11 News)