Thursday, March 31, 2016
Question of the Week No. 11
Cyber bullying, student violence at school and
teenage suicide is a growing concern in grades K-12 in schools across the
nation. Some schools are monitoring the
social media posts of students in an effort to combat these problems and
require students to disclose their social network passwords to school
officials. Many students and parents
oppose such monitoring, citing an invasion of student privacy. Is such monitoring sound public policy in
today’s digital world?
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I am not sure how to answer this question. One part of me wants to agree that kids should be required to release their passwords as this probably would cut down on cyberbullying, but a greater part of me thinks this is completely creepy and invasive, even if they are kids. I think overall this policy is not sound and not right. I don't think it would allow kids to fully develop into their personalities if they were constantly being watched. Sure, it might cut down on bullying, but bullies have existed forever. Some people are just jerks and not everything in the world can be perfected. I also think it's not right to monitor the kids that aren't doing anything wrong. That just strikes me as an overreaching power for the school to have. I think parents are right to oppose this monitoring, and if I had my own children, I would as well.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really interesting issue and one that is important to address as bullying moves from the play ground to the computer. I can see both points of view, but I am honestly uncomfortable with schools having access to the social media of their students to the level of having their passwords. This is not a lack of concern for students who are the victims of cyber bullying, but I think that this realm is better left out of the schools. While information that is on social media sites is not totally private, I do think that it is unreasonable to allow schools that much contact with student's lives outside of school. It is not the job of the public schools to monitor all aspects of student's lives. That being said, having that kind of access could help to prevent both cyber bullying and reactions to cyber bullying that could manifest in dangerous situations for the whole school.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is an invasion of privacy, and should not be allowed. While I think that cyberbullying is a big problem, and that steps should be taken to help prevent it, I think this is going too far. I am an advocate of monitoring things like blogs, and other apps and websites that are public, but I can't agree with having access to every student's social media account. It's in a similar vein to other privacy issues we've talked about, like data collection - just like a company may SAY they are not overstepping their bounds with who has access to your data, where it goes, etc., school officials may say the same thing about social media access. Suppose they think a student is doing/dealing drugs, or cheated on a test, or really anything. What's to stop them from snooping around on that student's social media to check things out? I also think that in general, this is just giving the school officials too much access into a student's personal life.
ReplyDeleteNo. While I understand that things such as teen suicide, cyber bullying, and school violence are serious problems, this is the wrong way to go about preventing/treating these problems. It’s one thing to look at student public profiles (which my school district did to look for sport/activity contract violations) but asking for passwords, which are inherently private and used on sites that may not be public or personally identifying, takes a step too far into student privacy. I personally think that even snooping on profiles without express parental and student permission (which is what my district did) is going a step too far in the duties of the school district. School officials have a professional connection to students, and while they may form a personal relationship, it is still important for them to maintain professional boundaries, in addition to maintaining the privacy of students. Students deserve to have a personal life not subject to scrutiny.
ReplyDeleteI agree that requiring students to disclose their login information is a step too invasive. I also doubt that this would serve to solve the problem. If bullies are aware that they are likely to be caught if bullying on social media because of such measures, they will likely move their harmful activity to a 'safer' milieu. The potential for a school (which already exerts immense coercive control over students) to misuse or abuse this invasion of privacy is likely, and I believe such a requirement would end up creating more problems than it solves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the common sentiment that releasing passwords is far too invasive of a step to take. I also tend to agree with Stefi in saying that even monitoring public feeds like facebook seems like kind of an overreach, but I would be far more willing to accept this sort of thing if it was the only option. However, issues like bullying are complex, and the invasion of privacy posed by revealing account passwords seems like a lot to give up merely for the possibility of catching unsavory activity. What would be a better alternative is to teach students not only how to block communications, but to also teach students that this sort of blocking is an appropriate reaction to bullying. These sorts of things seem like social problems, and ought to be solved with communication and education rather than surveillance.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Josh. I think that forcing students to give up their passwords if a privacy violation, but I think it also sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. One of the hardest things for a corporate network security officer to teach employees is that you should never give up your password to anyone (the good guys won't ever need it). I think that in some cases, social media monitoring could be helpful. If there is evidence (or at least very strong probable cause) that cyber bullying is occurring, there should be a mechanism for parents (and possibly also school officials) to see the Facebook posts. While going through the justice system would be too cumbersome, we could have Facebook implement a system to allow for minors incoming/outgoing messages to be requested. I'm not sure how to judge requests, but ideally they could be held to similar standards as the legal equivalent (a subpoena). In general though, I agree with Josh, the best course of action is education, but it would be nice to have a way to ensure that the the perpetrators got reprimanded/had to take a special class.
DeleteI like this solution, just because I feel like it could work similar to the current probable cause standards for warrants. Rather than being constantly monitored, the messages can be requested when proof is required, but student's privacy is still respected.
DeleteCyberbullying is a serious issue that deeply impacts many students and their families. I'm all for finding ways new and effective ways to prevent cyberbullying, student violence, and by extension, teen suicide, but I don't think having direct access to student's social media accounts is the right way to go about it. While the Internet and various social media platforms provide ways to bullies to harass other students "in mass", as it were, taking control of their social media accounts won't prevent them from saying mean things/bullying offline or through other channels. I think the root problem needs to be addressed--people being severely unkind to one another-- rather than doctoring the "symptom" of bullying via social media. Students should be allowed to have their own private accounts. Having administrators look through each and every post a student uploads won't stop bullying and it will increase tensions between students and administrators.
ReplyDeleteI think that requiring students account login information and passwords is not a good policy, even if it's meant to prevent cyber bullying or threats. I see this as a huge privacy invasion. If the school has access to someone's Facebook account, not only can they see what is being posted on their time line, they can also see the messages that they've send, their likes and interests, as well as their events that they've been invited or are going to. I agree with what Josh said about tackling this issue with education rather than surveillance. I don't think that this is a sound policy and I'm glad that the schools I went to didn't have this.
ReplyDeleteI don't see this as a viable solution to this problem. If the school makes the students give them their password information the students will just create another account. I see social media as the platform on which the bulling is happening but I don't think that this is were the problem lies. In my experience the issues has been not enough rules to stop perpetrators. Students bring these issues to the administration but they can't help because of the out of date bullying rules.
ReplyDeleteThis is me. I was on my other email and forgot to log out.
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