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California School District Hires Firm To Monitor Students' Social Media
An anonymous reader writes "A suburban Los Angeles school district is taking a novel approach to tackling the problem of cyber-bullying. It's paying a company to snoop on students' social media pages. 'The district in Glendale, California, is paying $40,500 to a firm to monitor and report on 14,000 middle and high school students' posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media for one year. Though critics liken the monitoring to government stalking, school officials and their contractor say the purpose is student safety. As classes began this fall, the district awarded the contract after it earlier paid the firm, Geo Listening, $5,000 last spring to conduct a pilot project monitoring 9,000 students at three high schools and a middle school. Among the results was a successful intervention with a student "who was speaking of ending his life" on his social media, said Chris Frydrych, CEO of the firm.'"
Observation outside the school for criminal activities is a police function. The last thing we need is another police like agency that calls itself part of a school system.
It's not about safety as much as it is about ass covering. The schools have been driven to this. Parents won't keep their children off the Internet. But when a child is bullied into committing suicide the school gets sued because they are a convenient target and because the law requires that children be educated, which for most people means sending children to public school.
Won't somebody think of the tax-payers.
As creepy as this is, if you broadcast your life in the clear using social media then you relay are in no position to complain about people listening too you!
This will last until the next suicide happens as a result of overlooked cyber-bullying there, with a lawsuit asking why the consultants missed it. The District will put the burden on the consultants, penalties will force them into bankruptcy and no one will try it ever again.
Or - the consultants will over react, causing too many false alarms and lawsuits for false accusations, with the same effect.
Sickening, but welcome to the age of the Surveillance State.
How about if tax dollars were used to follow this district's administrators, teachers and board members?
That is not a rhetorical joke.
How much porn are these "public servants" watching? What are their thoughts? How are they spending their time? Maybe we should do something about it. Let's call a meeting.
Fascist Scumbags.
How long before the kids start trolling the hell out of this just for the lulz? The possibilities are endless.
I see a major positive side effect of this: If students know that school officials are monitoring their social media accounts, then maybe (at lease the brighter ones) will learn to be a little more conscious of the stupid stuff that they post.
I'm skeptical it's not just paranoia and ignorance on the part of the schools. Kids aren't going to stop being horrible to one another, kids aren't going to realize that high school drama isn't anything to kill yourself over, parents aren't going to stop grieving when their kids die, and lawyers aren't going to stop taking advantage of their grief and schools' funds just because schools hired a guy to watch them. Use common sense and do what's right (IE not violating student's rights and wasting money).
You'll get sued the same amount either way.
How long will it take for the students to find out this is going on? My bet is that they already know.
So how long will it be before a student who isn't thrilled with having adults e-stalk them decides to leave a "private" comment about how Principal Lovegood is just a bit too handsy?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
By entrepreneurs eager to cash-in on wealthy school districts and the helicopter parents.
This is privacy invasion plain and simple.
I used to be a high school social studies teacher. *EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
You can blame all you want but in a capitalist society if you pay teachers like union bus drivers you are going to get what you pay for...teachers will still come but they won't stay...paying teachers poorly just burns out idealistic, well-prepared teachers.
capitalism = you get what you pay teachers
that's the end of this whole discussion...
Thank you Dave Raggett
When did parents stop being the ones considered responsible for their child's well-being?
No, it isn't about ass covering. This move creates far more liability than it removes. This is about the school system pushing farther and farther into the role of parent in an attempt to increase the size of their bureaucracy and thus the amount of funding they get. This school has just declared that it is their responsiblility to stop kids from commuting suicide.
No doubt they will soon be complaining that they are held responsible for the responsibilities they have demanded.
Doesn't matter. We've now had enough generations of public education breeding conformity into people that they have little or no expectation of privacy and almost no knowledge of their protected liberties.
Think of it this way: You and I probably remember a time when you didn't even need ID to get on a domestic flight and you could walk someone right up to their gate and see them off.
Anyone born in the last two or so decades won't remember this. They'll be familiar with an experience where you are treated like a criminal by a bunch of low-wage thugs with plastic badges who grope you and inspect you . . . and who also expand their scope to far outside the airport, to nearly any public place. Kids born today will only know a world where everything they do any time and anywhere is monitored, documented, archived, shared, and used against them by their government. If this is what they grow up around, what will they *allow* to change during their time, that kids born in five or ten years will, then, consider normal for *them*?
All of this originates with the expectations and demands set at home and school. Authority must be followed. Questions are not allowed. Critical thinking is discouraged. Individualism and standing up for yourself makes you a target.
What rights are you speaking of here? Is anyone getting wiretapped?
If you refer to Facebook et al., it's not illegal to view what someone has been dumb enough to post on the internet for all to view. For any 'spying' to occur, the pursuant must actually gain access to information disclosed from a non-public source. Refusing to cover your ears while someone shouts at the top of their lungs does not fall into this category.
Also, $40k per year is not much compared to what a lawsuit will cost. Perhaps over 50 years it might compare, but there is also the added benefit of one or more children being alive (which may be important to the related people).
In the end, I would rather see the affected communities spend their money on prevention of suicide than defense in a suicide-related lawsuit.
Maybe this has changed in the United States of Fascism, but every where else in the world, if someone is hired to stalk you 24/7, that is generally considered spying. Even if they only observe you when you're in public.
Irrelevant. Everything that is on facebook was put there by somebody who chose to put it there. If they put it on public display, then they chose to put it on public display. It's published, therefore it is public. This public information is available to anybody and everybody. As long as the school does not require the students to friend them or turn over passwords, what's the issue?
That said, this could teach students two very important things: reputation management and subterfuge. These are good things to know in an emergent surveillance state.
www.wavefront-av.com
I'm sorry for you but that doesn't apply to all schools.
The school I went to for fifth and sixth class was a cesspool of violence. It's also an underfunded school in a village with massive integration problems. That school is where teachers' careers go to die. The faculty isn't useful for anything and they don't enter the schoolyard during recess because they both don't give a crap and fear the children.
After that I came to a school where the faculty actually cares. We had bullying in our class. It greatly reduced in intensity when the headmaster showed up, gave the bully a dressing-down in front of the class and had him spend recess walking over the schoolyard while holding hands with the bully-ee - and promised that he'd monitor the situation and react appropriately in the future. (It helps that the now-retired headmaster was respected by the students on account of being generally awesome.)
Schools can be horrible with bullying but not all of them are. Both of the ones I attended are public; one just happens to be in a social hotspot and the other one isn't and has a really engaged faculty.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)