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1,100 Schools Now Scan Social Media For Violent Students - and Alcohol Use (usatoday.com)
In the hunt for potential acts of student violence, "schools are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence-backed solutions," reports USA Today.
Bark Technologies, Gaggle.Net, and Securly Inc. are three companies that employ AI and machine learning to scan student emails, texts, documents, and in some cases, social media activity. They look for warning signs of cyber bullying, sexting, drug and alcohol use, depression, and to flag students who may pose a violent risk not only to themselves, but classmates. When potential problems are found, and depending on the severity, school administrators, parents -- and under the most extreme cases -- law enforcement officials, are alerted. In the fall of 2017, Bark ran a test pilot with 25 schools. "We found some pretty alarming issues, including a bombing and school shooting threat," says Bark chief parent officer, Titania Jordan....
The Bark product [which monitors more than 25 social media platforms] is free to schools in the U.S. for perpetuity. The company says it can afford to give the service away to schools, because of the money it makes from a version aimed at parents... Bark is currently used in more than 1,100 school districts, covering 2.6 million children. If it detects something that is considered exceedingly severe such as a child abduction or school shooting threat, the issue is escalated to the FBI. According to Jordan, Bark sends out between 35,000 and 55,000 alerts each day, many just instances of profanity. But 16 plausible school shootings have been reported to the FBI since Bark launched its school product last February, she says.
The article notes these solutions have three major limitations:
The Bark product [which monitors more than 25 social media platforms] is free to schools in the U.S. for perpetuity. The company says it can afford to give the service away to schools, because of the money it makes from a version aimed at parents... Bark is currently used in more than 1,100 school districts, covering 2.6 million children. If it detects something that is considered exceedingly severe such as a child abduction or school shooting threat, the issue is escalated to the FBI. According to Jordan, Bark sends out between 35,000 and 55,000 alerts each day, many just instances of profanity. But 16 plausible school shootings have been reported to the FBI since Bark launched its school product last February, she says.
The article notes these solutions have three major limitations:
- "A school can't police a student's smartphone or other devices outside the ones it issued, unless the student signed into a social media, or other account, using the email or credentials the school provided."
- "None of the companies USA TODAY talked to for this story claim the ability to catch suspect behavior every time."
- "Students also are often more tech savvy than their parents and won't tell them about every account they have."
Good!
If only they had done this when I was a kid going to school in the Santa Clara county, maybe I would still have my upper teeth.
Seriously, why is it good for the eventually-to-be-grownup pupil to get forced into reconciling themselves to a life of constant surveillance? Is that the message these schools want to convey? Because it's what they're doing.
This is the logical end to those "why didn't they do something about it, all the warning signs were all over social media." Well, now they're doing something about it. They've started - and will never stop - surveillance of human activity for deviant behaviors. If you're thinking this is ripe for abuse by being the one able to define deviant behaviors, you're right. It's basically what happened to England in the plot of "1984". I hope you're happy and you got what you asked for.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"ou guys think I'm just some untouchable peasant? Peon? Huh? Maybe so, but following a broom around after shitheads like you for the past eight years I've learned a couple of things. I look through your letters, I look through your lockers. I listen to your conversations. You don't know that, but I do. I am the eyes and ears of this institution my friends. By the way, that clock's twenty minutes fast!"
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Spam them. Flood the database with crap.
If they're going to collect the data anyhow, make it worthless.
AC
Edgy kids will have no future but since they know it all, they are okay with that.
This is the reality we are facing, lord knows we aren't gonna take away dangerous individuals rights to commit mass murder with guns.
Better this than the unhinged have their guns taken away, right?
I don't use any social media.
My school had me room with a felon.
That turned out greeeeaaaat.
Baby steps, schools.
Why don't they just find the video game players? Surely they'll be the violent ones.
in case any of them are secretly doing anything unsavory?
99% of teachers drank alcohol as teenagers, it aided their successes in life. Good way to castrate the next generation from becoming normal adults. Enjoy your socially retarded children.
1) Students will shift away from public media / platforms to new semi-private networks
2) OSINT surveillance services try to follow, but are blocked by privacy rules
3) Surveillance tries legal hacks to get backdoor access to networks and students' media
We will have a society where everyone is aware of someone listening in and potentiall taking action.
I have lived through the Soviet times in ex-USSR. We have been there and this is not nice.
I also have three kids (two teenagers and one younger). I strongly believe they should have options for privacy both from us the parents, the school and authorities.
So 35,000 and 55,000 students were psychologically damaged to feel exposed and never trust anything online again. 16 of those were plausible. How many actual? Totally worth the damage to society as a whole to live as terror stricken people living with the thought that everything that they write and say is judged by authority figures instantly.
Violence against Nazis isnt the answer... no, wait...
Heil Hitlary as mandated by law!
Why is the school getting involved at all??
You know, so they can see if the teachers/school administration has had any DUI, domestic abuse calls, etc?
Oh, that's right. If you're under eighteen you have no legal right to know this information.
---
And as for turning on the camera of student issued laptops to check up on them, let me guess...
30 seconds to check to see if the quarterback is saying a racial slur.
5 minutes to see if the head cheerleader is drinking during a sleepover.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
I'm perfectly happy to NOT subject my children to this surveillance.
Fuck Bark and the horse they rode in on!
The Bark product is free to schools in the U.S. for perpetuity. The company says it can afford to give the service away to schools, because of the money it makes from a version aimed at parents.
It would be more accurate and honest to say that the Bark product being used by schools is a business-critical marketing device to gain leverage over parents and “convince” them that they’d better pony up the 9 USD per month. Because, you know, it would be too bad if their child’s school found out whatever could be out there in the cloud, and proceeded to initiate some reprisal or even call the police on their beloved little one.
Stop using all social media that can be tracked.
Don't get your image uploaded to any social media service.
Dont use names, words, jargon, locations that will induce tracking online.
Have an online computer for work, study, education. Have a VPN computer for computer games, searching.
Need social media for some project? Set up an account with the min information just for that. Never use it again.
Enjoy your freedoms like past generations did.
Be aware of how many jobs, other nations, gov, mil, services will "demand" social media accounts in later decades.
Show them the account that has nothing on it as needed.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
PRC way ahead on social monitoring. Careful on data management they r minors. GDPR for US ?
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/l...
https://www.asumag.com/safety-...
Florida school officials and law enforcement had more than enough data to stop Nicholas Cruz.
Technology and good intentions are no match for incompetent and corrupt government officials.
Social cooling.
People are starting to realize that this 'digital reputation' could limit their opportunities.
Look: Remember the very first porn sites way back in the 90s? We clicked to see titties and then a question popped up: "Are you over 18 or over?"
- Yes
- No
We clicked, "No," and went to Disney.
Having IQs higher than asphalt, we made another run at it and gave the answer that fit our needs.
Few on /. are unaware of behavioural modification techniques.
People are slowly learning to shape their narrative on social media to avoid pain and gain favour.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
How tiny is your cock?
Children needlessly die in your country because you're a scared fag and have a tiny cock . Canadians are braver than you. Australians too.
Pussy!
Australians exercise strong censorship and ban games. Hardly a brave thing to do.
The AI would simply generate a report inquiring how it's even possible for a human to post THAT MANY MEMES. It just doesn't seem possible.
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