The Glendale School District article describes a program known as Geo Listening. This program controls activities on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Analysts are alerted to terms that suggest suicidal thoughts, bullying, vandalism, or foul language. The article clearly states, "When they find posts they think should spur an intervention or anything that violates schools' student codes of conduct, the company alerts the campus"(Ceaser). When they are notified, the person committing the inappropriate behavior will be confronted and possibly punished. Some people believe that this program is a good way to prevent cyberbullying, while others believe that this is an invasion to privacy. The people against the article believe that the program is violating Freedom of Speech. Human beings have the right to say what they want and should not be punished for what they have to say. The intentions of the program; however, are to help prevent suicides and bullying. Recently, in the Glendale School District, there have been two suicides that were caused by cyberbullying. In order to stop the bullying, the schools are doing everything they can to monitor not only the student's behaviors at school, but at home and on the internet. The company is looking into public accounts of students from around 3,000 different schools. The founder of the program, Chris Frydrych, states, " 'Daily reports to school administrators include a screen capture of the flagged posts, along with details of whether they were made on or off campus, the time and date, the user's name, if available, and a description of why the post caught the attention of analysts'" (Ceaser). Social media is a public place. Having inappropriate behavior online is the same as having inappropriate behavior in real life.
Glendale School District Symbol
The school was justified in using the program because they were doing this program for a legitimate reason. The school was only participating in this program to help ensure a safe environment at school and at home. The article talked about two recent suicides that were caused by cyberbullying which is a reason that promotes Geo Listening. The school; however, did not tell the students about the program. This resulted in an invasion of privacy. The students had no idea that their profiles were being monitored by their school. I strongly believe that this is actually a good thing for the students. If people want to have privacy then they should not be posting personal thoughts online. If they want to control their privacy then they should not even have a social media account in the first place. In order for students to avoid cyberbullying, they should avoid the internet in the first place.
SRVHS Danville, CA
If the social media was monitored at SRVHS, I believe that the kids would protest against the program. The kids at SRV are very stubborn and would come up with a way to get rid of the program. I personally have not seen any kids from my school cyberbullying each other, so I believe we would not benefit from this program. The program would just cause anger throughout the school. In a rare case of harmful behavior online, I believe the program would automatically stop it. Geo Listening does have its pros and cons. It could help SRV by preventing that one rare case of bullying. It could also harm SRV by creating an tense environment full of kids who believe that their privacy and freedom of speech is harmed. People do; however, post party pictures that include drugs and alcohol. The school can easily access these photos and somehow punish the student. For example, if a student posted a photo of a beer, Geo Listening would alert the SRV staff. The SRV staff would then track down the student and contact his or her parents. The SRV kids would probably end up creating a petition of some sort to get rid of the program angered by their invasion of privacy. The cycle would then repeat itself.
