School Pays To Get an Algorithm To Scan Students' Social Media For Threats and Suicide Risks Posts (wbur.org)

When someone visits the buildings of Shawsheen Valley Technical High School in Billerica, as they walk through the secure foyer, they have to get their driver's license or another state-issued ID scanned. But the secure foyer does kind of a high-level national background check, too, explains Superintendent Tim Broadrick. From a report: The "LobbyGuard" scanner is the size of a computer tablet. It scans a driver's license, takes a picture of the school visitor and if all is OK with the person's background check, almost instantly clears the person to enter the school. An employee behind a window then pushes a button and unlocks the door to the school hallway. Amid nationwide concern about school shootings, there's talk at Shawsheen Tech of covering the wall of glass in the lobby with a special film to make it harder for a bullet to pierce. There's also a police officer -- known as a school resource officer -- stationed at the school. He has an office in the lobby. And the school has adopted another security measure to try to protect students from attacks -- one you can't see. It's a computer program designed to detect threats against the school in social media posts. And it runs 24/7.

"It's receiving and filtering and then gives us alerts when certain kinds of public communication are detected," Broadrick explains. Shawsheen Tech buys the social media scanning service from a Vermont-based company called Social Sentinel. It's one of many technology firms doing some form of social media scanning or monitoring. Social Sentinel claims it's the only one with expertise in protecting schools. Shawsheen Tech has about 1,300 students. It pays Social Sentinel approximately $10,000 per year, according to Broadrick.

Comments

Re:Sounds more like a prison...

[CrimsonAvenger]

Easy availability of powerful guns

Whenever I see someone talking about AR-15's as "powerful guns", I realize that that person knows nothing about firearms.

My .30-06 is a powerful gun. It'll drop pretty much any North American game animal in one shot. Which is a good thing, since it's a single shot rifle. Likewise .45-70 (replica of a 19th century firearm). Or my shotgun.

My Mini-14 (functionally identical to an AR-15, but NOT an "assault weapon" since it was specifically exempted from being considered such when the last "assault weapon ban" was passed) is pretty much useless for hunting anything bigger than a rabbit, being a glorified .22 when all is said and done....

Though I agree that the high school in question comes across more as a prison camp than a school....

Re:Let me fix this

[xlsior]

What's the answer? We can't legally restrict the press, nor should we

In much of Europe, with few exceptions newspapers typically won't print the names of criminals (whether just accused or actually convicted), but only refer to them by their initials -- less "glory" to go around while they still report what happened. In many cases because they are required to, but because naming & shaming is against their code of conduct.

(Added benefit is that someone who does get convicted and served their time, won't be instantly unhirable in perpetuity, giving them a chance to make an honest living)

Even in the US, most papers have policies of not printing the names of victims involved in sex crimes -- would it be that much of a stretch to do the same to perpetrators of mass shootings and such? Witholding their name denies them a huge chunk of the 'recognition' the so often seem to yearn for, and it's not not knowing the name of some random criminal is going to have a big impact on the average person's day to day life.

Re:Let me fix this

[uncqual]

I don't have a clue how much of this has to do directly with school shootings, but I agree inappropriate brainwashing of kids that ignores the reality of the real world seems quite damaging (and probably better explains the large percentage of young people who end up living at home for years after college than the "great recession" does).

The zero tolerance policies for fighting and "bullying" (whatever that means) and the "everyone gets an award" philosophy and over-stressing "being respectful" eliminates many important life lessons from children when they are best equipped to deal with and learn from them.

When I was in school, teachers didn't usually stop fights between boys (or girls, but those were quite rare) if the combatants were somewhat reasonably matched, it was one-on-one, there was little danger of lasting physical damage (for example neither party was trying to poke the other's eyes out or using weapons or beating up a lot on someone who was down on the ground), those involved weren't notorious bullies (of which there were few if any) or particularly vulnerable and were picked on very often. Sometimes we would get disciplined very lightly (have to stay in over the next lunch break rather than go outside for example), but that was it. Trips to the principal's office over such things were very rare, parental notification was even rarer, and suspension (let alone expulsion) was extraordinarily rare (I think we knew it was possible, but I don't think I ever knew anyone very well who it happened to).

Very important life lessons were learned at an appropriate age through such physical combative situations. Most kids learned that they were not as tough as they thought they were (or, conversely that they were actually tougher than they thought). Most kids learned that they could, and should, defend themselves (this lesson sometimes took a while for some). Most kids learned that even though they "win" a fight, sometimes it takes a physical toll on them so fighting may not be the best strategy. Most kids learned that you can have a fight with someone and still be friends. Some, including myself, discovered that after fights with relative strangers, both parties respected each other more having tested the limits of the other party and demonstrated their own abilities -- in fact, after most such fights, regardless of who won, I ended up being substantially more friendly with the other kid.

To deprive kids of these experiences seems unwise.

Similarly, when I was in school, everyone didn't get an award or trophy (even for "participation") and little attempt was made to mask the fact that some students were more capable than others at some things. In this environment, students learned what success and failure felt like, how to deal with constructive (and sometimes not so constructive) criticism, that to get an award or recognition or even a good grade could require hard work and focus and that such hard work and focus could often be the difference between being at the top and in the middle. Having to learn these lessons later in life is much more difficult and, it appears, happens too rarely.