hijinks #2
何事も行き過ぎると必ずそれに対する方途が講じられるわけで...。近頃目につくSNSの下品な使い方も例外ではないようです。日本にもこの流れはやってくるのでしょうね。
'Eraser' law will let California kids scrub online past
Teenagers’ nightmarish propensity to post underage party hijinks, flesh-flashing and nasty commentary online have found a dream come true in California, which will soon let them erase their tracks.
The first-of-its-kind “eraser button” law, signed Monday by Governor Jerry Brown, will force social media titans such as Facebook, Twitter and Google let minors scrub their personal online history in the hopes that it might help them avoid personal and work-related problems.
The law will take effect on January 1, 2015.
“Kids so often self-reveal before they self-reflect,” James Steyer, founder of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that pushed for the law, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Mistakes can stay with teens for life, and their digital footprint can follow them wherever they go.”
The issue grows increasingly important as the first generation to grow up entirely in the Internet era finds the contents of its online life become more voluminous every day—as well as being largely searchable.
Social media sites will be required to inform their users about the new rights. Twitter and Facebook already make deleting pictures and comments an option.
“This is a groundbreaking protection for our kids who often act impetuously with postings of ill-advised pictures or messages before they think through the consequences. They deserve the right to remove this material that could haunt them for years to come,” said California state senator Darrell Steinberg.
hijinks（or high jinks）は以前、Jakieが扱っていましたが（置きかえとしてあげたフレーズはまずかったけど...）、"noisy or excited behaviour when people are having fun"（LDOCE）のこと。少し堅い定義をみると、"boisterous or rambunctious carryings-on : carefree antics or horseplay"（Webster）というのもあり。
いずれにしてもこれはティーンズを中心とした世代が経験する「どんちゃん騒ぎ、大馬鹿騒ぎ」のことです（cf. shenanigans cf. http://d.hatena.ne.jp/A30/20111230/1325206630）。jinksにはそれだけで「馬鹿騒ぎ」の意味があり、これに「ちょー」（古い？）を意味するhigh (hi)がついた進化形がhijinksです。
一見、jinxと間違えそうですが、これはまったく別物の単語。語源が気になる人にはWord-Detectiveの項目を引用しておきます。（UG）
The “jinks” in “high jinks,” meaning “playful, rowdy activity” or “disruptive pranks or unruly behavior” comes from a slightly different Scots dialect sense of “jink” as a noun meaning “game” or “prank.” Apparently “high jinks” in the 16th century was a drinking game (at the time also known as “high pranks”) in which the loser in a throw of dice had to perform a silly task (or drink a certain quantity of alcohol). By the mid-19th century, “high jinks” in standard English had come to mean “lively merrymaking” and “boisterous pranks” in general.
