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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.'"
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.
From TFA:
Frydrych's firm scours the social media postings of Glendale students aged 13 and older -- the age at which parental permission isn't required for the school's contracted monitoring -- and sends a daily report to principals on which students' comments could be causes for concern, Frydrych said.
And how does the school district get the student account information? I know if they had asked me for that info (if social media, nay the Internet, existed when I was in HS) I would have replied, "fuck off." Hell, I'd give that same answer to that same question to my employer now.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
It's all about ass-covering.... until it backfires. Seriously, they are a school, not the Internet police. On top of that, I think court wise this could actually make them *more* vulnerable. Say the firm they hire *does* tell them about something, and action isn't taken. Now the school had a written report sent to the administrators and didn't do enough, at least that's how it would be framed by a suing attorney. I think that scenario is a lot more damning than simply taking the position that: "We are a school, we are responsible to educate kids, not keep track of their Facebook updates".
Not to mention going way outside their area.
If it's not being done on/with school computers, they shouldn't have anything to do with it.
They are supposed to be educators, not full time nannies/social police.