This past week, a video of a fight went viral. The video showed three high school students beating up another boy. When I first saw it, it was accompanied by a caption to the likes of, "Whoever this is punching on the kid with autism really needs to die, this is horrible".

I thought it was horrible, too, but I just thought was another one of those things we see online.

I had no idea of the affiliation with my former high school.

I discovered that at least one of the kids in the video goes to the high school I graduated from. Posts I had been seeing online finally came together. Instagram and Twitter accounts were sharing one of the boy's information, including where he goes to school, the school's phone number, and his home address.

Essentially, they wanted people on the internet to go "give him what he deserves".

First of all, the kid is 13. Doxing him puts not only him in danger, but it also puts his family and the whole school in danger. What if someone showed up at his house, seriously wanting to hurt him and the people he loves? We wouldn't be laughing anymore.

It doesn't matter if you think he deserves to be hurt the way he hurt the victim of this fight. It is not our place to call people to do that. We all need to take a step back and remind ourselves that there are real people on the other side of the screen and what we say online has real consequences.

Furthermore, I later found out that the victim is not even autistic. This whole thing only went viral so quickly because people were sharing it to bring awareness to what happened to a supposedly special needs boy.

The fact that he is not autistic does not make the situation any better, but I think we can all agree that not that many people would care about it if they knew from the start that he is not autistic.

Most of the time, when fight videos go viral, they are perceived as funny and entertaining. That's why people record them in the first place. Because they know people online like watching them, for some reason. And yes, obviously there would be a different reaction to a video if the victim is disabled in some way. I don't blame people for getting angry about it.

However, this has gone too far.

People quickly went from not only harassing the suspects in this video but to harassing anyone who has any affiliation with the school. Multiple people I follow were getting comments about how they deserve to be bullied/harassed for simply having the high school's initials in their bio.

McKenna Romasko, a sophomore at the high school in question, is one of these people who has received this type of comment. About the situation, she said, "Honestly I think attacking people who were not involved isn't right at all and bombarding the school with threats and phone calls, which holds not only high schoolers but preschoolers, as well, is dangerous."

I know from personal experience that this high school is a great place to go to school. There are so many amazing students and teachers there, but people seem to forget all about that just because of a couple of assholes.

Faculty from the school have taken to the internet to show the world that the school community is a wonderful one.

This story, although a drawn-out, stressful one, poses a good lesson.

First, don't believe everything you read on the internet. False information spreads like wildfire. Second, remember that there are real human beings on the other side of your comments. What you say online can really affect someone- it can even go as far as to put someone in danger.

Oh yeah, and don't beat people up.