School District Hires a Firm to Monitor Students' Social Media
LA's Glendale school district has been monitoring its 14,000 students' social media accounts for about a year.
By Sadho Ram — 16 Sep 2013, 04:21 PM — Updated about 11 years ago
A Southern California school district is trying to stop cyberbullying and a host of other teenage ills by monitoring the students' social media accounts
The Glendale Unified School District has begun using the firm Geo Listening to keep track of its students’ social media accounts this school year. The school district, responding to two suicides last year, says the program has so far 'been working very well.' But civil rights advocates object, saying it walks a fine line on privacy.
nydailynews.com
Glendale Unified School District hired Geo Listening last year to track posts by its 14,000 or so middle and high school students.
Critics believe the screening sets a dangerous precedent and stifles free speech, but school district authorities and Geo Listening say the purpose of the exercise is student safety.
dailymail.co.ukCritics think the school district's monitoring program goes too far
Free speech advocates say school districts reading students' social media posts is an invasion of the students' privacy - especially if they're punished for activities engaged in outside of school hours.
dailymail.co.uk“We all know social media is not a private place, not really a safe place,” Young Cho, a 16-year-old junior at Herbert Hoover High School, told the Los Angeles Times.
nydailynews.com“But it’s not the same as being in school. It’s students’ expression of their own thoughts and feelings to their friends. For the school to intrude in that area — I understand they can do it, but I don’t think it's right."
nydailynews.comLee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that defends privacy, free speech and consumer rights. told the Los Angeles Times the program is essentially 'stalking' school kids.
dailymail.co.ukThe company looks for keywords in online chatter that can alert the school district to potentially harmful actions
Geo Listening says it uses keywords to track students' social media posts, but it's up to school officials to decide what to do with that information.
firstcoastnews.comGeo Listening employs 10 full-time workers and contract staff who only work up to four hours a day because, according to firm CEO Chris Frydrych, “the content they read is so dark and heavy.”
time.com
The company won't disclose its methods and practices in gathering the students' messages, but it does use key words in its searches. The firm also didn't disclose how it confirms the youths are indeed students of the district.
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