12 Amy Scheinerman

In recent months many examples of lashon hara and rechilut have spread like a virus through the Internet, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Rutgers University Freshman Tyler Clementi’s roommate and another student videotaped Clementi engaging in a sexual encounter with another male student in his dorm room. The roommate streamed the video live over the Internet, making it immediately available to a large audience of Clementi’s peers. Clementi jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010.

Duke University senior Karen Owen composed a mock senior thesis entitled“An education beyond the classroom; excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.” The Power Point piece, parodying an academic study, revealed personal and even intimate details of 13 male athletes with whom Owen had had sexual encounters. Owen emailed the Power Point to two friends. Within days, it spread not only through the Duke campus, but was posted on numerous websites and was being discussed by major news networks.’

How many of us have received the email hoax claiming that President Barack Obama is a Muslim ? Or perhaps I should ask: How many times have you received this email?’

Employers now routinely make use of social networking sites to vet prospective hires. Few companies have crafted policies to govern how information gathered on the web may be used, perhaps because it is not possible to determine the accuracy of information collected in this manner. Anyone can publish anything about anyone.

Last summer, conservative political firebrand Andrew