(Image Source: Facebook)

BY YUTAKA HAYASHI

ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

It started with a tweet that went viral -- and ended with a sitting governor apologizing. KSHB has the details:

"18-year-old Emma Sullivan posted on Twitter that Governor Brownback sucked. She posted that during a school sponsored trip to Topeka. Last week a member of Brownback's staff saw the tweet forwarded it to Sullivan's principal. The principal wanted her to apologize to the governor's office, but she felt it was her freedom of speech, since it was on her personal Twitter account.”

After demonstrating how not to react to a teenage tweeter, Brownback issued an apology on Monday. The statement can be seen on Facebook, and it reads:

"My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.”

Sullivan explains to CNN the reason she tweeted the remark in the first place:

"At that time I was speaking to my 60 followers, which are a bunch of teenagers who wouldn't take the time to read the tweet that said 'I disagree with Brownback because of this and this...' "

A blogger for The Washington Post points out -- this brings up a problem with social media.

"The trouble with Generation Y is that we have all the private, person-to-person conversations that we don’t want our teachers to know about in public, on the Internet, where they are easily searched by Brownback staffers. It is an uncomfortable condition of growing up with iPhones.”

But anchors on The Young Turks argue, even though it is “easily searchable,” the reaction out of Brownback’s office was inappropriate.

UYGUR: “Okay, now is this the most mature tweet you could have made about the governor? No, okay.”

KASPARIAN: “She's a high school student.”

UYGUR: “Yeah, and what are they doing, Grown ass man going to try to punish a teenager in high school, because they didn't like her tweet. Are you telling me there is not more important things to do in the state of Kansas?”

Emma Sullivan currently has more than 14,000 followers and she tweeted “...I hope this opens the door for average citizens to voice their opinion” on Sunday.