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Brighton school slams zombie apocalypse Twitter claims

Education officials are demanding that web bosses shut down sites set up by pupils to mock their school.

Facebook has taken down a page set up by a group of sixth form students at Varndean College in Brighton after teachers complained it breached the school’s copyright.

The fake page, a light hearted look at life at the college, was immediately taken down by Facebook.

A similar site set up by the same group on Twitter is now being targeted by the school.

But Twitter has so far refused – so long as the students make sure the page states it is a parody.

Featuring a fake logo, it says: “Not so official Twitter Account for Varndean College Brighton & Hove.”

Among other things, it has claimed the school is closed due to a zombie apocalypse.

The page is followed by a number of people including some Brighton and Hove councillors.

A spokesman for Twitter said: “Twitter firmly believes in the freedom of expression.

“However, impersonation that misleads, confuses, or deceives is against our rules.”

The 18-year-old pupil who set up the Facebook and Twitter accounts, with two friends, said: “We are not very happy at college at the moment with some teaching and the computer systems.

“But we just set it up for a bit of fun so we were surprised they intervened so quickly.”

A Varndean College spokesman said: “We reported the fake Facebook page to Facebook so they took it down. Facebook has a clear policy of not allowing fraudulent accounts.

“If they are fake they have to make clear they are parody. This was not done.”

Fake Varndean tweets from @Varndead

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Comments(11)

rosiedoes says...
2:09pm Fri 4 Feb 11

I've always anticipated a zombie apocalypse spilling from Brighton General Hospital, looming as it does on the hill like something from a horror film.

chipmunk77 says...
2:09pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Hahaha! Very funny!

It appears the staff at Varndean have had a sense of humour failure.

Have they not heard of freedom of expression, or maybe they don't teach that there?

security words: dead-heads

Hector66 says...
2:23pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Brighton General Hospital was, indeed, originally built to scare the general populous. Originally it was the Work House and the Victorians deliberately built them on hills overlooking urban areas - "perched ceremoniously" - to remind those in employment to remain industrious or else the Work House awaited them. Somewhat ironically I learned this at Varndean Sixth Form doing social history with the most brilliant, progressive and inspiring teacher you could possibly have, a Roy Newbold.

Norsemen says...
2:25pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Keep fighting the good fight Varndead

Interociter says...
2:56pm Fri 4 Feb 11

I would have thought the teachers would be pleased with their pupils exhibiting creative thought, understanding the concept of satire and learning to use modern communications.

Granny says...
3:12pm Fri 4 Feb 11

I attended Varndean when it was a grammer school and you had to pass the scholarship to go there. It doesn't appear to have changed over the years - the staff were sadly lacking in a sense of humour then.

dhamallamafarmer says...
3:26pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Interociter wrote:
I would have thought the teachers would be pleased with their pupils exhibiting creative thought, understanding the concept of satire and learning to use modern communications.
Students who think don't pass exams. Those who learn by rote do!

Turing Test says...
3:44pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Granny wrote:
I attended Varndean when it was a grammer school and you had to pass the scholarship to go there. It doesn't appear to have changed over the years - the staff were sadly lacking in a sense of humour then.
Perhaps they were just constantly depressed by your spelling. You can't have got a scholarship based on your "grammer"...

puddingandpi says...
6:49pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Heaven forbid that children might actually be allowed to express themselves. Next they'll be starting to think for themselves & that just leads to trouble.

HoveRocksActually says...
10:50pm Fri 4 Feb 11

Superb idea, innovative thinking by the pupils and an utter lack of humour by the faculty. I attended Varndean Sixth form not so many years ago and benefited from some extremely good tutors - namely Julian and Martin from the media and film studies department. This is clearly the work of the 'management' rather than the teachers whom I always found to be very much behind any innovative use of technology. Keep up the good work deadites!

TheInsider says...
3:10pm Sat 5 Feb 11

Why is an 18-year-old still playing with zombies?
When I was that age we were more interested in se* and booze.
Zombies were for kids.

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