Monitoring Social Media

The Glendale school district is now monitoring postings on social media by their middle and high school students. They are looking for possible violence, drug use, bullying, truancy, suicidal threats, and use of social media during school hours. The monitoring of 14,000 students costs the distract $40,500. The CEO of Geo Listening, Chris Frydrych, hires no more then ten full time employs to monitor these students. Critics relate the monitoring to government stalking, but school officials say the purpose is for the safety of the students. During a trial run last spring they were able to save a student from taking his own life. In a more recent incident they found a student posting a picture of a gun, the parents of the child were contacted and the child was educated on why posting such photos are wrong. No disciplinary action was taken on that child, in fact no discipline as been needed thus far. But there is no question that authorizes will get involved if the incident is severe enough, such as a threat to shooting the school. Frydrych's firm monitors students ages 13 and older, the parents of students that aged do not need to give permission to monitor their child. The principals of the Glendale schools receive a daily email on the comments that may cause concern. Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that when the government gathers information on what happens out of school crosses a line. School officials state that they do not view what happens on private accounts. Frydrych's firm does not hack into private postings, emails, or texts. Students can easily switch their account setting to "private", avoiding being watched.
-Michael Martinez
- September 14, 2013
- http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/14/us/california-schools-monitor-social-media/index.html?hpt=us_c2