Three teenage women provide very different insights into the use of the Internet by today’s youth.

Yesterday, Erin Markes, 19, appeared in court in a child dependency hearing to find out if she would get her four year old son, who suffers from lissencephaly back from the state. She entered a formal denial of her child neglect charges at the hearing and another hearing is scheduled for May 5. Ms. Markes is also scheduled to be arraigned on charges of child neglect on April 16th. Led by members of the Lissencephaly Network, there is a petition to Exonerate Erin and Give her child back.

While others have been using the Internet to plead Erin’s case, Dianne Fitzgerald, president of the Lissencephaly Network, and the person who started the petition reported that Erin had made use of the networks online forum to seek help in how to care for her child.

The second young woman I would like to highlight is Avery Doninger. I’ve written a lot about her case. She is the student that referred to ‘the douchebags at the central office’, was banned from the ballot on a school election and now is awaiting a ruling by the Second Circuit on her case. While the word ‘douchebag’ may not have been the best word to use in the blog post, it was part of an effort, including a mass emailing, to get people more involved in the school district. The response by the administration seems to be more about trying to discourage student involvement that it is about choice of words.

This leads us to the third young woman online. Victoria Lindsey, according to some other girls was ‘talking trash’ online. She was severely beaten, with the beating being video taped and placed online. The girls doing the beating are now facing twenty years to life in prison. For details, see the blog post on ProgressiveU: Victoria Lindsey Beating and the commentary by Shelly Palmer on Jack Meyer’s site, What We Can Learn From Eight Florida Teens.

Each of these stories tells us a little bit about how the Internet can be used for good or ill and how people may respond appropriately or inappropriately to content online.

So, my thoughts go out to Erin, Avery and Tori as they all deal with their moments of fame, amplified by the Internet.