Internet Privacy & Kids: Social Network Monitoring in Schools
Social network monitoring becomes big business. Fresh off the heels of learning that the NSA has been gleaning data about us using information found on social networking sites comes the news that a school district in California is paying a monitoring service to watch and report on what students are posting on sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Glendale Unified School District is paying $40,000 over the next year to a company called Geo Listening to monitor its students’ social media activity. This program was introduced after one of their students, 15-year-old Drew Ferraro, committed suicide by jumping from the roof of Crescenta Valley High School. It started as a pilot project in three schools last year and is now being rolled out to all middle and high schools across the district.