Is New Media Going Too Far?

A recent scandal took place for the Kansas Governor, Sam Brownback, after a high school senior, Emma Sullivan, tweeted "Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot." (Huffington Post). Apparently the governor's press manager found the tweet and confronted the 18 year-old. She gained thousands of followers on twitter from the incident and had to write a formal apology. So, is new media being taken too far? This incident has opened the realm of freedom of speech and whether or not she should be held accountable for her tweet. Twitter is an informal website where people post whatever comes to mind. Now that it has become so universal, tweets and informal talk has become a more serious issue because of its availability on the Internet. Another topic has come up from this scandal, Brownback is using tax payers money to make sure no one is tweeting bad things about him. It does make me wonder how citizens of Kansas are reacting to this knowledge and if their impression of him as a professional has changed. Personally, I don't think Emma Sullivan did anything wrong. She was expressing her freedom of speech and personal opinion, whether that be negative or positive is up to her and it should not be infringed on. The fact that she was "punished" for doing so, is absolutely absurd. As for governor Sam Brownback, if people are tweeting negative things about you, maybe you should change what you're doing and use it as constructive criticism.