By Zoe Evans Eagle Eye Staff Writer
On Dec 1, an Instagram account by the name of ‘elcamino.tea’ started posting screenshots of messages and explicit photos concerning certain students and their intimate lives.
This peaked the interest of El Camino students, causing the popularity of this account to spread throughout the school.
Some posts are less explicit, talking about who got a boyfriend or girlfriend over Thanksgiving Break. Other posts were more revealing, talking about students at EC being intimate with each other on and off campus and even pictures of students wearing close to nothing, causing administration to step in.
The account was online for less than a day and it gained serious attraction from the students and staff at EC. The account had managed to post images and screenshots quickly, and all of the screenshots had edited-out usernames, therefore hiding the account owner’s identity.
However, the identity and names of students here at EC are still exposed and out in the open.
Although many students were supposedly caught or accused of certain things, there is no proof that the screenshots are true. The images are edited and cropped, making it impossible to see who is messaging who.
Whether the posts are true or not, they still humiliate students. This is the exact definition of cyberbullying, which is the use of electronic communication to intimidate or harm people, often with threatening and humiliating messages or pictures.
Students should not be violated this way in front of friends and family.
This is one of the many times where people think they can hide behind an account name and ridicule students. In the past month students were stealing and vandalizing school property. It was all for the sake of posting it on different social media platforms. It caused the S-Lawn bathrooms to close and teachers had to be more wary of students taking electronic devices in the bathroom.
This was all due to just one challenge! In the past there have been strange and weird challenges like the chubby bunny challenge, the cinnamon challenge, and even the tide pod challenge.
Slowly the challenges have become worse and more incriminating, causing changes at school, a supposedly safe place.
Schools in the San Juan Unified School District have very strict and set rules against bullying in all shapes and forms, including cyberbullying. These rules are here for a reason. To help students and protect them.
In the end, the account was banned just one day later. Though the account had only been up for less than 24 hours, it had already managed to post several conversations in such a short amount of time, and catch the attention of many students.
There isn’t one “fix it all solution” to prevent these things from happening. Students and parents should be aware and informed about situations such as this. Students can also report the account, not just to the platform but the staff and administrators on campus.
People’s private lives deserve to remain private.
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