3,000 schools spy on their own students

Big Brother is Watching You

Glendale Unified hired a company to secretly spy

on all students.  This neo-Fascist company plans to

be in 3,000 schools by December.

1984 is Here  -  The insane education industry claims they never, ever have enough money.  But they appear to have lots of extra money to hire outside companies to conduct 1984 Police State spying on students in their homes.

Glendale Unified is using the firm Geo Listening in a bid against so-called "cyberbullying", suicides, drugs and other ills. Critics say it infringes on privacy and steps beyond schools' jurisdiction.

As for the dumb ass cyberbulling, anyone ever hear to the fucking delete button?  or has society become so retarded that people want Big Brother to police our written words so no one is ever offended by anything?

The district last year hired Hermosa Beach-based Geo Listening to piece together the cyber tidbits of its 14,000 or so middle and high school students. The effort, for which the district is paying $40,500, is aimed at unearthing the earliest signs of bullying and self-harm.

The company's computers scour an untold number of public posts by students on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, for example. Analysts are alerted to terms that suggest suicidal thoughts, bullying, vandalism and even the use of obscenities, among other things. When they find posts they think should spur an intervention or anything that violates schools' student codes of conduct, the company alerts the campus reports Los Angeles Times.

While acknowledging some of the benefits, critics of the program contend that the monitoring could also have a chilling effect on students' free speech. And, they contend, it opens the possibility that students could be disciplined for comments made outside of school.

Students say the policing of their posts has stirred debate on campuses. Some are angry about what they see as an intrusion.

"They have a good purpose for what they're trying to do — stopping cyberbullying," Christopher Chung said. "Nobody really understands what it is about or what the main objectives are of the program."

The Glendale district began a pilot program to monitor students online last year at its three high schools, Glendale, Hoover and Crescenta Valley.

"We think it's been working very well," Sheehan said. "It's designed around student safety and making sure kids are protected."

The district does not provide a list of students to the company. Instead, it uses "deductive reasoning" to link public accounts to students, said Chris Frydrych, founder and chief executive of Geo Listening. He declined to be more specific.

Frydrych would not comment on how many school districts he has contracts with but said he expects the company to be monitoring about 3,000 schools worldwide by the end of the year.

Such programs must balance safe and supportive schools with student privacy and free speech, said Brendan Hamme, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.

"But this program is sweeping and far afield of what is necessary to ensure student safety and intrudes deeply into students' privacy and conduct outside of school," he said.

The list of issues the company looks for is extensive. It includes:

• controlled substances
• self-harm
• disruption of class or school activities
• hazing
• sexual harassment of peers or teachers
• threats or acts of physical violence
• use of fake identification
• hate speech
• racism
• weapons
• suicide or despair.

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, Frydrych said.

It's up to administrators to decide whether the posts warrant action, Sheehan said.


Sales Of Orwell Classic 1984 Soar After NSA Spying Exposed

“The family had become in effect an extension of the Thought Police. It was a device by means of which everyone could be surrounded night and day by informers who knew him intimately.”
― George Orwell, 1984