MANY have argued, tweeted, blogged and commented that we, the Gazette, have not been a particularly social media of recent.

Our story about assistant head teacher Charlotte Berry's expletive and sexually graphic public messages on Twitter was picked up by the national papers, but made a bigger bang on the micro-blogging website itself.

There had been no complaints to the school from parents or pupils. The tweets were discovered by the Gazette and we chose to publish them.

The Twitter community was not amused and fought back calling us "vile", "worthless", "lazy" and the same words so frequently used by The Billericay School teacher on her @talktoteens account.

Some 28,000 people read Matt Leys' scruffmutt blog entry "How to ruin someone's life for no good reason" after his tweet was bounced around the twittersphere.

Brentwood-based young Blogger of the Year Louise Jones said she was saddened by her local paper, describing Mrs Berry as an "inspiration".

And despite a number of other blogs, no one has disputed that the tweets were indeed sent by Mrs Berry, who taught social media as part of her media teaching at the school.

Further to this, commentators now seem at least aware that her account was used to engage with students at the school, yet the appropriateness of her tweets remains largely unquestioned.

Tweets compiled by the Gazette detail a conversation between Mrs Berry's account and a current student at the school. They were discussing coursework.

One blog about us, from the aptly named "unemployedhack", even claimed that our reporter Sam Smith was a former pupil of the school and had accessed her protected account. Simply false.

The most considered blog, in my opinion, and not simply because it gave some credence to our story, although she was in no way a supporter of our actions, was from Sarah Pinborough.

She asked: "I wondered how many of those people would have felt the same outrage if they had come by that story from their kids rather than the great God Twitter, in a kind of 'Oh Miss X tweeted about giving a b*** job, isn't that funny?' kind of way. I bet they'd have reacted differently. Their uproar would have been a completely different kind. Head teachers and phone calls spring to mind."

Yet the outrage against us grew as tweeters accused us of breaching her privacy and ruining her career for the sake of a story or to sell a few papers, which is what we do.

Mrs Berry closed her account less than 30 minutes after we contacted her, but her username still lives on.

On the Friday following publication on October 19, the hashtag #talktoteens was trending in the UK, meaning it was being discussed by thousands of users – 99 per cent of whom felt we had in some way violated her right to a private life with our "non-story".

But what do you think? Anyone who has been following the story online will be aware of our "dignified silence", as reported by the FleetStreetBlues blog, but it is time for the Gazette to speak up. Our next Tweet Up will be the place for you to air your views.

For those unable to attend, do what you do best and follow the debate on Twitter using #talktoteens. The event is set for 7 to 9pm on Wednesday, November 9 at the Bardswell Social Club, Weald Road, Brentwood.