[AdmiralRalwood]

That effectively completely takes away several constitutional rights of minors, does it not?

Which ones?

[Nuke]

i dont think minors have any rights anymore.

[The E]

You're - unfortunately - pretty wrong.

There is more and more policy and legal recognition now that bullying extends well beyond school as well, and schools are increasingly under a microscope for how they respond to behaviours outside of school that may continue at school.  A number of high-profile suicides in the US and Canada in particular are perpetuating this.

See, I don't technically disagree with the idea that schools should be proactive regarding bullying, but I disagree that a blanket surveillance regime is the right answer. If a limited investigation is started after a particular case comes to light, then it's a good idea to trawl through social media, but I remain convinced that this kind of total, untargeted surveillance is bad.

Society - and parents who don't adequately supervise and/or discipline their children - have made student behaviour outside of school the schools' business.

But is it necessary to put all students under surveillance? Is it necessary to introduce chilling effects like this? Shouldn't the focus be more on educating the parents instead of policing the children?

I know this is an idealist view, but we do not expect companies to keep tabs on their employees after hours, despite the various instances of bullying and abuse that happen in the workplace, so why do you believe it's acceptable for schools to do this?

In german, we have the word "Generalverdacht" for these kinds of things. It means a general assumption of guilt, which is what these programs effectively operate on. I would like to return to a general presumption of innocence instead.

[Mars]

That effectively completely takes away several constitutional rights of minors, does it not?

Which ones?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

[FUBAR-BDHR]

How long before it moves from monitoring publicly available info to a requirement for access to private info?  Don't hand over your myspace or facebook password get disciplinary action.  Unlock your phone and present it upon demand so your texts can be reviewed.  Random browser history checks before lunch?  Where does it end. 

Of course all this makes me glad I don't even have text messaging on my phone plan and have never even visited any social media site. 

[docfu]

That effectively completely takes away several constitutional rights of minors, does it not?

Which ones?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Excuse me if I'm wrong here, but if you post anything on a social network...especially noting the term 'social,' which, last time I checked, means to communicate with other people, then you are offering that information "to the public."

There is most definitely no violation of the 4th amendment if you wave a bag of weed in front of a police officer, nor should it be considered any violation if you post something online and authorities, be they police, school management, or otherwise, find it and proceed to question your motivation for having done so.

As for minors, and I'm sorry if this offends any minors here, but the simple fact is that other people are on the hook for your behavior, be they parents, teachers, police officers, doctors, you name it, and each and every one of them has both a legal and a moral responsibility, not to investigate your private life, but to act if information made public, by you...constitutes in any way seemingly unhealthy or inappropriate behavior.

Like it or not, the people in power want to shape society to be "better," regardless of what the definition of "better" means to you. The truth is you have a choice, but the choice you have is whether or not to use the most massive communications network in the world to spotlight yourself.

[Luis Dias]

So "this **** you placed in a media site is public" therefore we should think any public institution scanning everything you post isn't just ****ing creepy, out of its mind, flat out overreaching its purpose?

People are confusing here legal issues with ethics. YEAH, it may be legal for a school to scroll down every single tweet or facebook post you created, it's still weirdo behavior! And, again, the excuse of being for "our defense", for "our own good". Jesus F Christ, the last thing I want is for some bunch of Tea Party fanatics come to me and say "SEE? What did I say to you? SEE?" and you all just go hook line and sinker with this.

Come on, reclaim your own dignity for chrissakes.

And, of COURSE, I mean, this idea that legality is even an issue. AS IF we aren't being scanned and policed by the NSA right now, even though I'm portuguese and haven't any chance of voting for anyone in 'MURICA.

[docfu]

That was the entire point of making a free and uncensored internet, with no types of regulation on traffic...

...now wasn't it?

And the point of posting information in public internet boards is so that other people...can see it.

If we were talking about schools hacking people's accounts or sniffing traffic to see what they posted online, maybe I'd agree with you, but not when it comes to institutions looking at what's readily available online.

As for ethics, there just simply isn't anything unethical about opening your eyes and looking at the world around you. That's common sense. The alternative is encouraging everyone to stick their heads in the ground and turn a blind eye to anything they disapprove of.

The country I currently live in has people that do this all of the time which is absolutely terrible considering that it's the only country to ever have suffered not one, not two, but three nuclear accidents. Even after the first two intentional bombings, you'd think...you'd just think they'd have one hell of an oversight committee watching every step any nuclear-related association takes, but the exact opposite is true.

I am all for people watching the government and/or private organizations and bringing to light any illegal or suspicious activity. Likewise, I have to be willing to let the government and public institutions monitor private citizens as well.

It's your own fault if you post something online and it comes back to bite you in the ass. If you want to have a private experience with your friends, go out in the woods where nobody is around and have it there. Don't do it on the world's most advanced communications network.

[MP-Ryan]

You're - unfortunately - pretty wrong.

There is more and more policy and legal recognition now that bullying extends well beyond school as well, and schools are increasingly under a microscope for how they respond to behaviours outside of school that may continue at school.  A number of high-profile suicides in the US and Canada in particular are perpetuating this.

See, I don't technically disagree with the idea that schools should be proactive regarding bullying, but I disagree that a blanket surveillance regime is the right answer. If a limited investigation is started after a particular case comes to light, then it's a good idea to trawl through social media, but I remain convinced that this kind of total, untargeted surveillance is bad.

Society - and parents who don't adequately supervise and/or discipline their children - have made student behaviour outside of school the schools' business.

But is it necessary to put all students under surveillance? Is it necessary to introduce chilling effects like this? Shouldn't the focus be more on educating the parents instead of policing the children?

I know this is an idealist view, but we do not expect companies to keep tabs on their employees after hours, despite the various instances of bullying and abuse that happen in the workplace, so why do you believe it's acceptable for schools to do this?

In german, we have the word "Generalverdacht" for these kinds of things. It means a general assumption of guilt, which is what these programs effectively operate on. I would like to return to a general presumption of innocence instead.

I was pointing out that you're wrong in practice, not that your assertion is ideologically wrong.

I agree that schools have some role in addressing bullying that occurs on and off their physical sites, but I think the major problem - which schools are now trying to deal with and shouldn't - is that the most serious cases of bullying virtually always cross the line of criminal offences, yet parents and police have been historically unwilling to pursue charges because "it's just kids."

Passing around a topless picture of a teenage girl is distribution of child pornography, regardless of the age of the person who does it.  Death threats and repeated hang-up-calls, unsolicited text messages, and hounding are criminal harassment.  The point is that these laws have to be actually enforced.

Instead, collective wisdom seems to think schools have to deal with it.  Hence the creation of policies like those in the OP.  They're not Constitutionally-invalid, they're not illegal, and they're actually not even improper - but it's pretty sad that social failings have led schools to start data-mining their students' social media accounts.

[MP-Ryan]

How long before it moves from monitoring publicly available info to a requirement for access to private info?  Don't hand over your myspace or facebook password get disciplinary action.  Unlock your phone and present it upon demand so your texts can be reviewed.  Random browser history checks before lunch?  Where does it end. 

Of course all this makes me glad I don't even have text messaging on my phone plan and have never even visited any social media site.

Slippery slope arguments are generally invalid and intellectually lazy.  Not only would such a policy be illegal (by any public school, at any rate), but completely impractical.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech"

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

A school policy monitoring public social media posts does not constitute a violation of the Congressional prohibition for legislation on freedom of speech.  Contrary to popular belief, the US protections on freedom of speech extend only to legislative actions by government, and only to actions that explicitly seek to censor speech.  This policy doesn't even come close to qualifying.

Second, security from unreasonable search and seizure applies only to areas of ones life where there is a reasonable belief of privacy (which is weighted not as a binary factor, but as a continuum).  Posting information publicly is treated in the same manner by the Courts as shouting it in the middle of a busy street.  Public postings on social media have no privacy interest attached, and therefore anyone - law enforcement, schools, your employer, your ex-wife, etc - may freely monitor and record them as they please.  Furthermore, the 4th amendment applies only to government searches and seizures.  Private employers are free to institute policies to search your person as they generally please (within reason) without running afoul of the Constitution (they may run afoul of employment law).  Schools fall somewhere in between, but are generally permitted to search student lockers, bags, and persons as they please.  They may NOT do so to further the purposes of a government agency (like law enforcement), but may do so for their own purposes.

In short - there is no prohibition on ANYONE that prevents monitoring of public postings on the web.  Like I said before, if you post it online, assume that you're doing the same thing as shouting it on a busy street because that's all the privacy protection it gets.  Unfortunately, most people do not understand this.

[redsniper]

In german, we have the word "Generalverdacht" for these kinds of things. It means a general assumption of guilt, which is what these programs effectively operate on. I would like to return to a general presumption of innocence instead.

Oh~ Now why would you be pushing so hard for us to think you're innocent? "Thou dost protest too much!" Are you sure you aren't a terrorist? 

[FUBAR-BDHR]

How long before it moves from monitoring publicly available info to a requirement for access to private info?  Don't hand over your myspace or facebook password get disciplinary action.  Unlock your phone and present it upon demand so your texts can be reviewed.  Random browser history checks before lunch?  Where does it end. 

Of course all this makes me glad I don't even have text messaging on my phone plan and have never even visited any social media site.

Slippery slope arguments are generally invalid and intellectually lazy.  Not only would such a policy be illegal (by any public school, at any rate), but completely impractical.

Yea tell that to companies that already have put in place policies that require access to private areas of your social networking.  Some even require you give them your passwords as part of the job interview.  Yes you can say no and not get the job or move to a different company but kids usually don't have such options with which school they go to.  This will be pushed as far as they can push it.  Sooner or later it will end up in courts probably after a number of suicides due to misuse of the obtained information that shames the kids.  The schools in trying to force anti-bullying will have the same effect on some kids as the bullies. 

[MP-Ryan]

Yea tell that to companies that already have put in place policies that require access to private areas of your social networking.  Some even require you give them your passwords as part of the job interview.  Yes you can say no and not get the job or move to a different company but kids usually don't have such options with which school they go to.  This will be pushed as far as they can push it.  Sooner or later it will end up in courts probably after a number of suicides due to misuse of the obtained information that shames the kids.  The schools in trying to force anti-bullying will have the same effect on some kids as the bullies.

For one - the legal framework which governs the behaviour of contractual relationships, such as those that exist between employer and employee, is fundamentally different from the legal framework that governs the behaviour of school administrations.  This is well established in law in the United States in particular.

For two - there is privacy law that establishes that asking interviewees for their social media logins and passwords is illegal in many jurisdictions.  Monitoring potential and actual employee social media that's public doesn't violate privacy laws.

For three - you have zero evidence that the information collected will be misused, zero evidence that it will necessarily shame the kids, and zero evidence that suicides will result from collection of publicly-available information and provision of summaries of it to school officials.  This is all conjecture, and poorly-rationalized conjecture at that.  You are making the same argument as people who say if homosexuals get married then the entire fabric of society will collapse.  Uh, no.

You're arguing slippery slope, a position which is factually untenable for all the reasons above.  I'm really trying hard not to link to a recently-posted resource on acceptable logical uses in debate.  Really.  All of the things you've mentioned could happen.  Pigs could also evolve wings and start trans-continental migrations.  Possibility does not speak to probability.

[Luis Dias]

And the point of posting information in public internet boards is so that other people...can see it.

People, not institutions stalking and watching every move you possibly make.

If we were talking about schools hacking people's accounts or sniffing traffic to see what they posted online, maybe I'd agree with you, but not when it comes o institutions looking at what's readily available online.

JFC, this is precisely what I meant about the difference between legality and ethics. YES, it is legal, NO it is ****ing creepy and stalk behavior nonsensical drivel. It's "totalitarian", in that Orwell "I see everything you do" sense.

As for ethics, there just simply isn't anything unethical about opening your eyes and looking at the world around you. That's common sense. The alternative is encouraging everyone to stick their heads in the ground and turn a blind eye to anything they disapprove of.

It's not their duty to approve or disapprove about things they have absolutely no business to be involved in in the first place. If bullying occurs, then the people involved or the people who observe it should point it to the school or to someone who can deal with it. As you say, the information is available. You don't need any "preemptive" spying to occur beforehand.

The country I currently live in has people that do this all of the time which is absolutely terrible considering that it's the only country to ever have suffered not one, not two, but three nuclear accidents. Even after the first two intentional bombings, you'd think...you'd just think they'd have one hell of an oversight committee watching every step any nuclear-related association takes, but the exact opposite is true.

I don't have a clue of what you are talking about and I sincerely think it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I am all for people watching the government and/or private organizations and bringing to light any illegal or suspicious activity. Likewise, I have to be willing t let the government and public institutions monitor private citizens as well.

They should mind managing their own **** and get it together instead of watching my life.

It's your own fault if you post something online and it comes back to bite you in the ass. If you want to have a private experience with your friends, go out in the woods where nobody is around and have it there. Don't do it on the world's most advanced communications network.

There's a difference between what I expect from any third party that will have their own interests that I have no control over and what I can criticize about government or schools or other public institutions. I will *have* to accept it, since ahem it's ****ing legal. I also have the right to call them weirdos, ****s and assholes for behaving in such a creepy stalking fashion.

[Luis Dias]

you have zero evidence that the information collected will be misused, zero evidence that it will necessarily shame the kids, and zero evidence that suicides will result from collection of publicly-available information and provision of summaries of it to school officials.  This is all conjecture, and poorly-rationalized conjecture at that.  You are making the same argument as people who say if homosexuals get married then the entire fabric of society will collapse.  Uh, no.

This is a load of .... you get the drift!

Law of Murphy should be ample evidence that this law will be abused, and I always take for granted that laws will be used to their limits. They will be "abused" so to speak. The idea behind it is evil and should be squashed like a bug. Schools and institutions should respect everyone's privacy and not indulge in this overzealous protective bull**** that is just a nightmarish overreach of the idea of a "Nanny State".

"You are making the same argum..." I just hate when people start talking like this. No, it's not the same argument. It's the reality. The society is *already* collapsing to this truth that everyone is spied upon. It's like you aren't paying attention to all the shenanigans involving the NSA and how apparently every country's government is merely jealous of the technological advantage that the US has over them, not about the ethical problems associated with it. Companies *do* wonder about your online activities and *do* pressure you to see your own facebook pages, etc. This is not some "dystopian nightmare" that some lunatic is bringing up to scaremonger you. It's reality. It's happening all over the place and it will only get worse.

[MP-Ryan]

Law of Murphy should be ample evidence that this law will be abused, and I always take for granted that laws will be used to their limits. They will be "abused" so to speak.

Popular sentiment is not evidence, Luis.  Furthermore, this school policy is not a law.  Indeed, the potential for abuse of voluntarily and publicly posted information collected from public spaces is pretty much zero.  Your right to privacy for publicly-shared information is zero.

The idea behind it is evil and should be squashed like a bug. Schools and institutions should respect everyone's privacy and not indulge in this overzealous protective bull**** that is just a nightmarish overreach of the idea of a "Nanny State".

You'll note I have never said I agreed with the practice, merely that it is perfectly legal.

"You are making the same argum..." I just hate when people start talking like this. No, it's not the same argument. It's the reality. The society is *already* collapsing to this truth that everyone is spied upon. It's like you aren't paying attention to all the shenanigans involving the NSA and how apparently every country's government is merely jealous of the technological advantage that the US has over them, not about the ethical problems associated with it. Companies *do* wonder about your online activities and *do* pressure you to see your own facebook pages, etc. This is not some "dystopian nightmare" that some lunatic is bringing up to scaremonger you. It's reality. It's happening all over the place and it will only get worse.

Hi!  Back in the piece that we're arguing about, schools in one district have a policy in which they have hired a company to collect publicly-posted material from social media and collate it.  Why are you launching into full-on moral panic phase?  Again, slippery slope arguments are foolish, especially when we're not even talking about a law that would lead to the supposed slippery slope.  We're not talking about a law at all.

[Dragon]

Also note, if the system does get abused, what stops anyone from going to court about it? Afterall, that's the point of the justice system. No system is entirely abuse-proof, but we have ways of punishing people who try that. There's no evidence that monitoring public data can lead to embarrassment and suicides, quite the contrary, this could help with preventing situations like that. Parents often don't watch what their kids are doing on Facebook, but considering what kids post there, somebody definitely should. You occasionally see this, a tragedy occurs and after the fact, they look on the kid's Facebook or Twitter and say "we could have seen it coming!".

 I'd say, this decision is, in fact, a very good thing, which could actually help reduce bullying. Granted, parents are the ones who should be doing that, but since they aren't, school needs to take over this. It's the parents' fault it came to this. Just like you don't leave a child alone for a day in an empty house, you can't leave him/her fool around the internet completely unchecked. Some people still don't realize that the internet is just as dangerous as any other public place. Kids are not supposed to have the sort of privacy adults have, precisely because they're kids and need supervision.

[MP-Ryan]

Allow me to summarize this briefly:

1. Students place social media posts in a public space, without privacy protections, voluntarily and of their own free will.
2.  Courts acknowledge that public posting on the Internet attract the same privacy protections as speech in public on a busy street - that is to say, none.
3.  A school district in California, which is not a legislative body, has implemented a policy of hiring a company to monitor public social media postings of its students.
4.  Despite the fact that this is not a violation of Constitutional rights or privacy law, or the result of the enacting of any law, or being carried out by an intelligence or law-enforcement body, this policy is wrong because:
     a)  Constitution!
     b)  Privacy!
     c)  If public things are monitored then kids will be forced to give up their passwords and have their information abused and will all commit suicide and there will be no more children and the human race will end and oh what a shame that is so we definitely shouldn't ever have policies that monitor public information because it means the end of the human race! (hyperbole intentional)
     d)  NSA!  OMGWEREALLBEINGSPIEDON.

To which I react with:

  or 

Look, folks, if you want to argue that the policy is wrong because schools really should (in your opinion) have no obligation or need to implement such a policy and parents should instead take responsibility for monitoring/policing the behaviour of their children online or offline, I fully agree with you.  But most of the arguments bandied about in this thread are either flat-wrong factually, or unsupportable because they argue slippery-slope nonsense.  As I said earlier, I'd actually say the policy is a perfect lesson to kids and their parents that nothing on the Internet is private, especially things you don't actually set as private!

There are many reasonable and valid premises on which to argue this policy is asinine.  Just don't try to tell me we're nearing the end times because a school is monitoring public information.

[Lorric]

I personally agree with the policy. I imagine it would work with data being collected, and only if the data hit whatever flags the program was looking for, would a person end up casting eyes over the material at all. Or if someone was reported as a bully, then the material would be instantly available. Your normal kid would surely never come under scrutiny, they're just one of hundreds of people, they can't have an intimate knowledge of every one, only the select very few who warrant looking at.

This talk of stalking, there would be nothing to stop say a paedophile teacher from going online to look at the posts of a person, because they would choose that person by seeing them and having access to their records already, not this system.

But this is also a good consideration:

As I said earlier, I'd actually say the policy is a perfect lesson to kids and their parents that nothing on the Internet is private, especially things you don't actually set as private!

Just don't try to tell me we're nearing the end times because a school is monitoring public information.

Would you rather your kid gets caught out by the school while they're a kid, or in a much more serious way in later years as an adult? Whether that be by some criminal, or getting fired from their job, as you semi-frequently see happen to people in the spotlight due to a twitter post or suchlike.

[Luis Dias]

Please tell me HOW on earth am I supposed to bring up evidence of a kind of practice that is only NOW beggining to take hold?

This kind of "empiricism takes all" approach is getting tiresome and old real fast. It's like trying to debate Chomsky... Look you don't need evidence to observe the obvious, and the obvious is that society is going in a direction where the term "privacy" is getting shorter and shorter in practice and in theory. Where all the shades of gray between "absolute privacy" and "absolute public" are getting crushed and thrown into the public sphere by default, and the excuses are always the same, "it's about your safety and the safety of your children", etc. Watchmen will never go wrong in any of this, so you can be ASSuRED no abuse will be commited.

Excuse me? Really? Are we now ignoring centuries of actual data on how human beings behave and abuse every single system they inhabit in exchange of a mindless empirical naiveté of  "but you have no EVIDENCE that people will misbehave". Yeah, of course I have no evidence of something that will happen in the future, NOR DO I NEED TO. I just have to know how humans behave within their systems and with respect to the allowances they are given, and this kind of direction we are headed is a nightmare in the making. And what bothers me even more is that people don't even take any of this **** seriously! It's as if all the scandals have never happened and we just pretend people are angels!

Bloody hell.