by Madi Hayter |

It’s not all fun and games behind a mask on the Internet, whether it’s good or bad. Liberty has proven this to me. Many Liberty accounts have been created, both positive and negative. Liberty Love has been named a “pioneer” of love accounts. It’s given us some uplifting spirit, complimenting people and groups. But there are also ‘hate’ accounts that showcase the downsides and dislikes, even including lies. Then there are the parody accounts such as Liberty Meh, and Liberty Poops. As these accounts have progressed, most of these turn into drama, dividing our town.

One of the problems with all these accounts being anonymous is trying to figure out who is behind the screen. Seniors Audrie Estrada, Kathrine Kuhlmann, and Courtney Gartner were suspected of being Liberty Love. They described the feeling of being questioned by their peers.  At first, it was flattering, but eventually, it got annoying. “I thought it was kind of ridiculous, when [Audrie] said no, it wasn’t her, then they got to another level to saying it was her mom. I don’t think people would go to that extent for just one Twitter account,” Gartner said.

I feel people should stop tormenting possible members of Liberty Love. Everyone has been blamed for something they did not do; the feeling is aggravating.

Another problem is that some don’t see all love in Liberty Love. “It makes them feel bad, because they’re like ‘nobody likes me, I’m not on Liberty Love,” Kuhlmann said.

The kids who don’t get noticed feel isolated. To me, they are singling out people, making them feel less involved. I have direct-messaged Liberty Love, via Twitter, asking for a shout-out to Breakfast Club members who helped with the training for the seventh graders, but they claimed that compliment as their own. There are students who have gotten multiple shout-outs, when some have not even gotten one. A lot of people have done amazing things in our community that haven’t been noticed, but then again, credit isn’t everything. But it is nice to be recognized for the good things you do, it is almost encouraging to keep doing them.

Liberty Love isn’t the only the controversial account, Liberty Problems is too. The one that had happened during my freshman year, I noticed caused a lot of drama and negative attention. The current Liberty Problems says, “There were previous ones, the other ones around were stupid. It wasn’t really intentionally to bully people; it was just to laugh at the school.”  Then, Liberty Problems added, “The other account was just making fun of people, don’t get me wrong it makes fun of people, but you can laugh at it. It’s not direct bullying.”  I feel that regardless of how you put people down, it’s still bullying and that’s wrong.

People may start these accounts with good intentions, but behind the mask, they can lead to cyber-bullying, or in some cases, harassment. Personally, I believe that there shouldn’t be any Liberty accounts created by students. Each can turn problematic and some start out that way. The comedy accounts require someone or something in Liberty to be the butt of the joke, the hate accounts are hurtful, and won’t change anything about the “problems” they tweet about.