California School District Hires Firm To Monitor Students' Social Media 250
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.'"
Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:3)
Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:4, Insightful)
You'll get sued the same amount either way.
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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 y
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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It's relevant to the article because they are "searching for possible violence, drug use, bullying, truancy and suicidal threats.". Got that, you stupid bastard? They are searching for evidence with no crime, crime outside of school not being in their job description in the first place.
The 24/7 is an reference obvious to the literate and non-troll of the fact that a child's FaceBook account is accessed by the
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The only thing that will stop kids from being horrible to one another is if it's taken seriously when it happens. This is a first step towards that. If kids are held accountable for their bullying of other students, it will stop. THAT is what is missing. I was regularly bullied and my reports always fell on deaf ears because it usually came from jocks and I went to jock schools; Del Mar Middle School, Branciforte Jr. Jigh, and Harbor High in Santa Cruz County. These are all bastions of child abuse. The form
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This is the problem with the progressive mindset right here. All of the other steps dont count.
All what other steps? No school I've ever attended ever did anything meaningful, or indeed anything at all, to stop bullying. In fact, the faculty regularly encouraged and enabled it.
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:3)
When you think everything is your responsibility, you will not be doing well at the thing that really is your responsibility. You can bank on that.
Re: Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:4, Funny)
blame 'budget cuts' (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
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*EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
Great, but this problem is happening outside the classroom.
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*EVERY* problem in the classroom is solvable with a properly trained and experienced teacher.
Great, but this problem is happening outside the classroom.
no, every school-related problem is solvable in school by a properly trained teacher...
to falsify my point, if a kid was getting bullied by neighborhood kids who don't attend his school and they don't have bruises or speak up to a teacher about it then yes that would be a scenario that wouldn't be solvable by the teacher...
what you people have to understand is that teachers (and probation officers) are the catch-alls of our society...you **wouldn't believe** the problems a standard public school teacher is
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I don't know how a teacher will solve this, though it is definitely school related.
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A teacher handles that problem by teaching the kid how to handle the situation themselves. Novel concept, huh?
Of course, that's really a parent's job, so putting the expectation on a teacher to raise your kid properly seems unfair.
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In my case, properly trained means a four hour session twice a year practicing CPI [crisisprevention.com], along with using the methods it speaks of daily.
It's easy for you to sit on the sidelines and call someone out for a meaningless capitalization typo, isn't it? In fact, in a discussion about bullying, you decide the best thing to add is more bullying.
And people wonder where these kids learn it from...
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And if they're going to hire a firm to monitor student online social activities, they got ripped off at $40,500. Creepy Larry would have done it for free.
Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:5, Insightful)
When did parents stop being the ones considered responsible for their child's well-being?
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When did parents stop being the ones considered responsible for their child's well-being?
Blame the internet. See before the internet, your parent knew you did fucked up shit, but didn't really have any proof. Now that it's posted on fb, twitter, and whatever else is cool, parents are aware of what their kids are getting up to. So they want to blame the school, otherwise they feel that fault would be there own.
As for bullying, we are a culture of being bullies. It's in our movies, our tv shows, it's how business get bigger, it's how America treats the rest of the world. By being a bully
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Re:Again, the ends justify the means? (Score:5, Insightful)
No doubt they will soon be complaining that they are held responsible for the responsibilities they have demanded.
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I agree on the ass-covering but the bulling IS the schools fault. I was very much a victim of it in highschool. I was "The guy" that got bullied. Every school has one. The kids knew it, the teachers knew it, the principle knew it. For some reason the adults in charged seemed to thing it was somehow my fault. I was hyperactive (annoying) and I didn't fight back... the perfect target. I reached a tipping point late in my senior year and proceeded to beat the shit out of anyone that even remotely tried to bul
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Uh, yes, and yes? The two aren't mutually exclusive.
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Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?
You must be new here - I mean to the planet - welcome. Watch your back, we're a narrow-minded, short-sighted, fucked-up species.
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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 li
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Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?
Human nature being what it is, that's something that people never learn until they suddenly wake up one day and find *they've* just been deemed an "obstacle" to some government "end" which must be removed. Of course by then it's a little too late.
People are shit. People in government are shit on warp drive with afterburners. Why should or would anyone think allowing corrupt, power-hungry, arrogant, and greedy government shits (yes, even your guys) more and more powers and more and more of *our* money to use
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No. People are really that stupid.
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Haven't we grown out of "the ends justify the means" yet?
Never have and never will.
Simply Awful (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/velocity/2010/02/18/teachers-spy-on-student-via-webcam/ [forbes.com]
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/22/1814248/school-spying-scandal-gets-even-more-bizarre [slashdot.org]
Re:Simply Awful (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, why don't you just fix the fucked up environment that school's create
You can fix that with one and only one change: students must be able to pick and choose who they want - and, most importantly, don't want - to interact with. Someone hurt you, or is scary - banish him from your presence, for a while or forever. This will be self-regulating, unless the student wants to be all alone (and, actually, that is fine as well.) Those bans must work everywhere - in class, and in halls, and in the street. (Too much to ask for, but that's the spec.)
The whole problem is that (a) students have no say in who they are working with, *AND* (b) they have no means to control behavior of others. Adults have both of those options. I don't know why so many ancient writers say that childhood is the best time of anyone's life ... in my opinion, it's the worst time (aside from deathbed, perhaps.) Children have no rights; everyone is a superior; noncompliance is punished; complaints are not accepted; crimes can be committed against you with no recourse... Hell, as soon as I was done with school I ran away and never looked back. The adult world is simply heaven, compared to the wolfpack-like society of children where only physical strength and ferocity matter.
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This really isn't true. Students don't need to be able to ban everyone and anyone. Schools do need to kick out the small minority of incorrigible troublemakers who aren't there to learn anyway, and who ruin the learning environment for those who are.
That's a lot of why child society is the way it is. Schools tolerate it. I actually had another parent come to me because one of my kids was teasing one of hers. For months. To the point where her child didn't want to go to school. The school knew the whol
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Schools do need to kick out the small minority of incorrigible troublemakers who aren't there to learn anyway, and who ruin the learning environment for those who are.
The problem is that the main troublemakers are often quite intelligent and good pupils with a lot of friends at school. You have to be in a position of power to be able to continiously harass people without getting into trouble yourself. It's not the big redhaired stepchild, who mainly harasses other children, it's often the captain of the football team, the winner of the literacy contest or the class speaker. What you consider the actual trouble is the angry and helpless reaction of the weaker children, wh
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The problem is that the main troublemakers are often quite intelligent and good pupils with a lot of friends at school. You have to be in a position of power to be able to continiously harass people without getting into trouble yourself.
Well, they're often in a position of power, but they're rarely intelligent or good pupils.
It's not the big redhaired stepchild, who mainly harasses other children, it's often the captain of the football team, the winner of the literacy contest or the class speaker.
The TEACHERS are the biggest bullies, and their disrespect for the students set the tone. When the kids see them treat you with disrespect, they know they can do the same. And when they get away with it, it becomes open season. Every single time I bothered to report abuse against me, and we're talking about physical abuse that often left a mark, not just the ubiquitous emotional abuse, it was ignored. That sends a mess
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Interesting idea in theory, but it would fail miserably in practice. For example, suppose Sally, Debbie, and Barbara are best friends until Sally and Barbara have a falling out. Sally enacts the "ban anyone I don't want to talk to" provision and Barbara's class schedule gets moved around so Sally doesn't have to see her... with the added "bonus" of Debbie and Barbara being kept apart. So now Sally is making sure that Debbie remains HER friend and NOT Barbara's. This could easily be used by the head of a
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Do anything against them and you get kicked out of the "in kid" schedule.
This is already true, and it was true forever. You cannot force anyone to invite you to events, or even accept you as a guest outside of school.
Sally enacts the "ban anyone I don't want to talk to" provision and Barbara's class schedule gets moved around so Sally doesn't have to see her... with the added "bonus" of Debbie and Barbara being kept apart.
Where will that "added bonus" come from? S remains all alone, while D & B
Please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't somebody think of the tax-payers.
Can't complain about privacey (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
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If the school district was paying $40k for a guy to drive around in a van and watch your children in "public" places through binoculars, you'd be grabbing a torch and pitchfork and demanding the principal's head on a plate.
But instead they're paying $40k to monitor your children's "public" conversations online, and you think its A-OK.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
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They already pay guys to do this, so what's the big deal?
They pay guys to watch your children in school. These guys don't need to use binoculars, they get right up close and even speak to your children! They are called teachers.
They pay guys to check on your children if they are shouting in public places. And some of these guys have vans! They are called police.
If you're letting your children online to conduct private conversations in public, then it's your head that should be on the plate.
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We are not complaining about some Joe on the street reading your 24/7 postings and getting a chuckle or posting a vitriol laden response. We are talking about a governmental agency reading them and then intruding into your life with government backing if *they* deem what you post is unacceptable to them.
You say NSA snooping is bad and yet a school's snooping isn't. Yet both are doing the exact same thing and claiming it's "for you protection".
By the way, your using a
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I believe this as well.
This is an issue that I run in to more and more these days, usually among younger people who grew up on the Internet. They tend to have the opinion that the personal stuff they post on the Internet should never be allowed to be viewed or used by people they didn't intend it for.
I get exasperated trying to explain that the Internet is a public place, like a bus station, except that when you speak loudly on the Internet, your voice echoes forever.
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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!
Depends.
If the [ private | public ] agency doing the spying on the kids uses false pretenses to encourage FB 'friendship' in order to snoop that wouldn't be the same thing as 'broadcasting your life in the clear'. More of a multicast to approved receivers.
Knowing how these things generally work (Score:2)
pfftt (Score:5, Insightful)
Or - the consultants will over react, causing too many false alarms and lawsuits for false accusations, with the same effect.
Account info? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
If you post on a public site like Facebook where you go to high school, I would say that's fair game for everyone. This isn't like the NSA snooping on private conversations. If you post it in public, you can't then say someone can't read your posts to track you.
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Note the use of the word "may" to justify the snooping.
What the fuck world did you grow up in? That is a blatant lie.
Re:Account info? (Score:4, Informative)
Probably the same way that the US Navy got my contact information to harass me when I was in high school. The school just gets authority to collect it and to hell with your wishes. Compared with the years of harassment and insults from the jack asses at the Navy, this is of somewhat lesser concern.
But, it's still a concern, the last thing we need is to condition kids to think that it's normal for schools to spy on your behavior outside of school hours.
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Your military recruits those of school age?
I mean it actively encourages them to join, rather than just under 18s are allowed to join up?
And judging by a previous reply, is legally entitled to contact info for all students?
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Probably the same way that the US Navy got my contact information to harass me when I was in high school. The school just gets authority to collect it and to hell with your wishes. Compared with the years of harassment and insults from the jack asses at the Navy, this is of somewhat lesser concern.
The US military has been known to procure it's harassment lists from professional private sector list brokers.
But, it's still a concern, the last thing we need is to condition kids to think that it's normal for schools to spy on your behavior outside of school hours.
This is one of those damned if you do damned if you don't situations. You can criticize this all you want and you are right, watching student's social media is plain creepy. However, after the next time some deranged student walks into a school and kills 20+ of his fellow students you will also be able to criticize the school district quite justifiably. After all, this student had been blogging abou
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Christianity? Not so much.
DIsclaimer: I'm atheist. I criticize all religions.
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With $40K and a geo-tag, I could screen-scrape enough facebook and twitter to identify 90 percent of the students who are at any given school (who use social media) given:
1) Any seed account , even the principal or superintendant, or someone else at that school
2) A list of student names - and it gets easier with ages
3) Students often post unfiltered information publically, including the names of their sports teams
4) Students are often not
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You can also make accounts using the names of real students for the friend requesting, or completely random ones. Some people won't friend the "Mascott" account, but may approve a request from somebody they think they know. A lot of people won't even notice being friends with two "Steve Smiths," but you could change the name on the account after getting friended pretty quietly to avoid being accidentally contacted as the actual person.
Re:Account info? (Score:5, Informative)
And how does the school district get the student account information?
1. Create a fake account using the picture of a really cute 16 year old girl claiming to be new at the school.
2. Request to friend a few boys. 99% of them will accept.
3. Follow the friends of friends network to connect to everyone else.
In a few days, you should have every student with a Facebook account. My daughter is in high school. She has over 600 Facebook friends, and she will just automatically accept any friend request from any other student at her school. I think this is pretty typical for HS students.
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The students probably have their whole profile and all their posts public. I believe that's the default, and many probably didn't bother changing it. I really have no issue with this, as long as they're only accessing public profiles - if you're publishing information, it's up to you to limit your intended audience.
Let's also monitor the teachers and admins (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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In your example these "public servants" do things in private and keep them private. But children using Social Media choose to reveal their activities and thoughts to the public, by definition, aren't keeping these things private.
As long as these companies don't 'hack' the Social Media accounts of the children to get access to 'private' information, I don't see the problem. The same thing applies to public servants as well. Anyone can access publi
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The problem is social networks are fundamentally anti-social. Healthy people have normative behavior, that is they adapt to the requirements of the situation; that covers the gambit for sitting posture to what opinions you express and how loudly.
You can say that makes them hypocritical or whatever but its pretty normal and everyone does it. You don't change the opinions you hold at school/the office, but you probably do express them less loudly if at all compared to at the political rally. Trouble is you
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The problem is social networks are fundamentally anti-social
What? Yeah, and the problem with water is that it's dry, and the problem with light is that it's dark. Wait, what?
You don't change the opinions you hold at school/the office, but you probably do express them less loudly if at all compared to at the political rally. Trouble is you have one FaceSpace profile that follows you everywhere.
That's not a problem in cases like this, because these people aren't using back doors. They depend on your post visibility, which you (nominally) control. You're 0 for 2.
Kids and adults for that matter, need a place to blow off steam, so they don't take that rage back to school with them, and so they can conform while there. If the school is going to effectively follow kids home, it's going to creat new problems.
Again, since you control post visibility, this is more like the school watching the kids with binoculars and telescopes from the school roof. What the kids do in public can be seen. If they have the intelligence to hide it just
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I call social-networks anti social because they distort the way people normally interact. They create what feels like a intimate experience when in fact its all very public.
because these people aren't using back doors. They depend on your post visibility,
Which hardly anybody who isn't interested in the subject of privacy knows how to manage properly; and the options and behavior of the networks changes every few months. Really really easy to get surprised if you don't pay attention.
Also school aged children don't have a whole lot of social experience to begin with; due to in experien
Let the trolling commence! (Score:4, Insightful)
How long before the kids start trolling the hell out of this just for the lulz? The possibilities are endless.
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The great school is an outstanding educational and sporting centre, brilliant teachers who teach the capitalist system along the golden road to full employment.
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Their response to critics (Score:2)
Good! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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> 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.
And the really bright ones may decide not to join Facebook/Twitter/whatever. Actually, maybe some good may come out of this after all.
They're spending EDUCATION money on THAT? (Score:3)
Just when you think that school boards can't get any more stupid and administrator-heavy, somebody comes up with a real whopper.
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Not spying (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with government spying: everything monitored here is already in public view.
Soaking the taxpayer (Score:2)
This won't end well (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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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?
Students have been spreading calumnies like that about their principals and teachers since before there was Internet access... I don't think anything would be different now.
OTOH the knowledge that there are adults (virtually) present might well be enough to prevent the Lord of the Flies scenario that seems to play out too often these days.
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The situations aren't even remotely the same. Do I really have to explain why, or can you work it out for yourself?
Teensy hint: consider the difference between publicly accusing a teacher of sexual misconduct and telling a friend "privately", along with something like, "And if anybody tries to make me tell, I'll just deny everything".
What's a poor eavesdropper to do?
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Teensy hint: RTFA
"I find it interesting that people keep asking if we're doing something illegal or snooping or eavesdropping, but what we're actually doing is looking at public posts," Frydrych said. "We don't see any private posts."
It's not just "publicly accusing a teacher", it's "publicly accusing a teacher, with _all_ your friends and relatives there to hear it and eternal record remaining".
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From TFA: "People say that's not private: It's public on Facebook. I say that's just semantics. The question is what is the school doing? It's not stumbling into students -- like a teacher running across a student on the street. This is the school sending someone to watch them..."
And anybody who believes even for a second the company doesn't go deeper than they admit to going is probably ready to take advantage of that amazing opportunity extended by a Nigerian bank president.
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Which part of "public on Facebook" did you miss and where did you read about phenomenal hackers and deep NSA connections of the monitoring firm?
People are arguing - and I tend to agree - that it's not school's business reading public FB walls, just like it's not school's business to send people to watch over playground and sit in cafes behind their students. It's public, physically and legally, point of dissent is ethical.
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How long will it take for the students to find out this is going on?
Well, it's on the news. What more is there to "find out"?
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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?
Brilliant :-)
What a great idea! (Score:2)
All kids should have adults looking out for them, helping them grow into successful adults.
This is truly an idea who's time has come.
Post a gun ... get an inquiry (Score:2)
In another recent incident, a student posted a photo of what appeared to be a gun, and a subsequent inquiry determined the gun was fake, Sheehan said. Still, school administrators spoke with the parents of the student, who wasn't disciplined, the superintendent said. "We had to educate the student on the dangers" of posting such photos, Sheehan said. "He was a good kid.
Errr
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If any parent makes a fuss about Constitutional rights they are showing signs of PTSD. Welcome to the medical no buy list.
Stalking is still a crime (Score:2)
If "safety" is created by stalking, the price is too high.
I hope the students (Score:2)
Hopeful some of the older students will conspire to troll the fuck out of the watchers.
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What a horrible job (Score:2)
I'd shoot myself if I had to forcibly read HS facebook posts all day...
Busy monitoring nothing (Score:2)
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That's the thing, if there's actual bullying going on, there's a paper trail of sorts. No need to actually spy, when a kid complains about things being posted to their page, they can just show the principal.
It's a bit of an odd question where exactly the line should be as the bullying these days is more likely to continue past the point of a student being at the same school or even in the same state.
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It's the PUBLIC bullying and defamation that's problematic. if mullying would consist only of private messages, it could easily be blocked. The problem is the false, but public facebook profile that tells everyone what you like to do with sheep and dolphins.
And $40k wouldn't even hire an single, additional teacher, so much for "nice ressources".
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The point of Reputation monitoring is to find out, what "information" about you (or the monitored subject) IS already public. So posting such results would be of no use. That kind of monitoring is desigend to find that public page that already everyone but you knows about and to explain why everyone is calling you names like "sheep lover" when you walk down the hall.
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