Calif. school district monitoring students' social media activity

[Jazzy]

Social media texting, tweeting, and posting are all part of being a teen these days, but now some teens' online actions are being monitored on a daily basis.

The social media sites of all 13,000 students in Glendale, Calif.'s middle and high schools are being monitored.

School officials hired a company called Geo Listening to daily track the students' online posts with the goal to intervene when students discuss suicide, bullying, violence, or substance abuse. Richard Sheehan, superintendent of Glendale Unified School District, said, "The whole purpose of this is student safety ... Basically it just monitors for key words, where, if a student is considering harming themselves, harming someone else."

Geo Listening collects information from sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram -- publicly accessible social networks -- and sends the information culled from the searches in a daily report to school officials. In a statement, Chris Frydrych, chief executive officer of Geo Listening told CBS News "[we] don't monitor private emails, text messages, phone calls or voicemails."

The service costs $40,500 per year.

CBS News spoke to one parent, Michelle Wright, who said she hopes it makes teens think twice about what they post. "There's a lot of cyberbullying that I've seen," Wright said. "So I think if the school gets involved that's it wonderful, it's a win-win."

But the American Civil Liberties Union is more concerned with how it impacts privacy and civil rights issues. Brendan Hamme, staff attorney of the ACLU of Southern California, said, "We're looking for what privacy safeguards are put into place, how the information is being utilized, how it's being stored and kept, if there are restrictions on how it's shared with other entities."

Yet many teens being monitored say they just don't want grown-ups listening in. Ashley Sandoval, 15, said, "We rebel. If your parents come and tell you, 'Oh you can't do this,' you're going to go and do it just to show them that you can. So I don't think monitoring us is going to do us any good."

Geo Listening claims it isn't prying into the lives of teenagers -- just giving the old-school notion of "hall monitor" a high-tech twist.

Full article

Do you think this monitoring is a good idea? Why / Why not?

 

[DrLeftover]

"It's to protect the children"

Argument over.

All objections will be recorded and investigated by the authorities as a possible threat to the children.

 

[JetWing34]

It should be done to the entire nation, to prevent children and teenagers from being bullied, being violent, being drug addicts, and wanting to kill themselves or somebody.

 

[Bluezone777]

It should be done to the entire nation, to prevent children and teenagers from being bullied, being violent, being drug addicts, and wanting to kill themselves or somebody.

It's a nice thought but that will just get abused and used for more then what was intended for. Once you open the door for any invasion of privacy, it never gets closed. I rather have my privacy and take a chance that something might happen that could have been prevented if all privacy was removed. Besides spying on everyone won't prevent every tragedy that happens in this world. We can't simply save everyone as it's not humanly possible to chase down every possible lead involving the things you listed. You can't stop people from being who they are. You can "force" people to play the act of being what you want them to be but deep down they will remain who they are until they wish to change themselves. That's the very definition of free will which we all possess.

Living without freedom isn't living.

 

[Jazzy]

The service costs $40,500 per year.

Surely this money could have been spent more wisely. School supplies, field trips, sports equipment, etc. This company is doing the job that the parents themselves should be doing. As far as an invasion of privacy, there is none. Anything posted on the internet is fair game for anyone to look at. Want total privacy? Never get on the web to begin with.

 

[Evil Eye]

Depends on where they get the money, I guess.

As far as an invasion of privacy, there is none.

True, though it is slightly creepy.