Lawsuit filed over Facebook free speech

April 26, 2012 (GRIFFITH, Ill.) (WLS) -- The issue at the center of a lawsuit involving students who were expelled for writing comments on Facebook interpreted as death threats is whether those posts should be protected as free speech.

It all started with three teenage girls having a conversation on Facebook.

"When we made those comments we didn't think ahead," said Sabrina Munsie of Griffith Middle School.

"I didn't mean anything that I said," Kennedy Fortier said. "I was just joking around."

According to a police report filed by Griffith Middle School, the girls, including Fortier and Munsie, were joking about killing all the ugly people.

One comment says, "OMG, before I die, I wanna kill 20 people. Another reads, "If I killed with a knife, I'd fill a tub with acid and put the body in there and nothing would be left."

One of the people mentioned at the beginning of the thread was fellow student, Courtney Tinsley.

"I felt really hurt and upset, and I started to cry," Tinsley said.

"Bullying is getting people shot and killed in schools," Courtney Tinsley's father, Timothy said. "We just don't know what to do. We want this to stop."

Within hours Fortier, Munsie and the third girl involved in the online conversation had been suspended.

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Lawsuit filed over Facebook free speech