School districts buying social media monitoring technology, but little evidence it keeps students safer

The Brennan Center for Justice has an article examining schools use of social media surveillance software to improve student safety. The article notes that school officials and policymakers have turned to a broad range of surveillance technologies in an attempt to prevent school shootings/mass violence incidents, including social media monitoring. "A number of companies, many of which have sprung up in the last five years, are selling software that can allegedly identify signs of violence or other concerning behavior by trawling children’s social media posts and other online activity." However, aside from anecdotes promoted by the companies that sell this software, there is no proof that these surveillance tools work. "But there are plenty of risks. In any context, social media is ripe for misinterpretation and misuse. But the possibility of misinterpretation is particularly high for middle school and high school students, who are more likely to use slang and quotes from pop culture, and who may be especially motivated to evade adults’ prying eyes. Difficulties in interpretation mean that social media monitoring of students is likely to lead to false positives."

The full article.

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School districts buying social media monitoring technology, but little evidence it keeps students safer

School districts buying social media monitoring technology, but little evidence it keeps students safer

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