Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#51

Post by esaym » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

momokoko wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's pick one. Either: 1. Allow for potential bullying and sexual harassment and other things kids put each other through. 2. Monitor every single thing they do and police them at all times. We as a society need to make a choice. You cannot have a perfectly safe and positive environment at all times for children(and adults) without constant and detailed monitoring. My guess is that the correct answer l…

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

I can tell you right now (as someone that actually went to the mentioned Brazosport school) that if they had more stricter rules and monitoring "in my day", I probably wouldn't be here right now (as in being part of the HN community). I'd probably be in prison or working a minimum wage job.

I was not interested in going to high school. Perhaps because there were no classes that interested me (another issue). I cut class a lot (missed more than 20% of days), hung with the wrong crowd, ran from the school cop on several instances. And plenty of other unmentionables.

If there was more surveillance, I would have just gotten kicked out more or would have been pushed to just drop out. The only reason I graduated was due to the lack of surveillance.

So if "surveillance" is meant to help those that are impoverished or disenfranchised, and by my own account would have lead to a worse end in my life, then what are we helping?

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#52

Post by BlackRing » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:54 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #26

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

Unfortunately, it's pick one. Either: 1. Allow for potential bullying and sexual harassment and other things kids put each other through. 2. Monitor every single thing they do and police them at all times. We as a society need to make a choice. You cannot have a perfectly safe and positive environment at all times for children(and adults) without constant and detailed monitoring. My guess is that the correct answer l…

As hyperbolic as this is, I agree with it. There's no need to constantly monitor people like this and it's realistically "big brother-ish" to do so.

What society, parenting, and/or schooling has failed to catch up with is the increasing pace of technological use by adolescents. No one's set proper societal or social guidelines for it, and the schools themselves haven't a solution/educational program outlining it either. Teaching people how to properly behave hasn't been explicitly stated as an area people need to include. They think that phone, or laptop, or tablet is just a black hole and that it's not "real life" or that another person isn't at the other end of it.

And I'm not talking about online shitposting, extreme satire, or any other elements of actual freedom of expression that may be offensive, but the reality and effects of bullying.

It's a 19th century problem people are trying to correct with 21st century tech, when it's anything but. It's a societal issue, or at work we call them "HR issues".

All this tech is going to accomplish is acclimate students to being watched all the time, and that's not a place I want to live in.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#53

Post by noonespecial » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

devoply wrote: post #10

Schools in certain parts of the US, usually with more unruly students from lower income backgrounds, are pretty much set up like prisons. You can't leave the premises as the exits are heavily guarded, there are cops present, there are various sorts of checkpoints where things are searched. Now it looks like the prison follows you home into your private life where you might be planning something nefarious. It's a bit…

>Now it looks like the prison follows you home into your private life where you might be planning something nefarious.

Just getting them warmed up for the parole process later on.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#54

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:00 PM UTC

> Evergreen Public Schools in Washington state, for example, started using the company's service this school year. Between September and mid-March, the system flagged more than 9,000 incidents in the 26,000-student district. The overwhelming majority-84 percent-were for minor violations, such as profanity.

The fact that the system even monitors for profanity at all tells me its purpose has a lot more to do with student surveillance than it does with student safety.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#55

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #31

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

> You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expecta…

>Bullying is an all day every day thing with children.

Kids tease each other, they call each other names, they occasionally get into fist-fights, but that's not necessarily bullying. Bullying is systematic and targeted harassment; it is entirely right and proper that we should not tolerate it.

If a kid is a bully, he's an asshole. He shouldn't necessarily be expelled or even necessarily suspended, but someone needs to make it crystal clear to him that his behaviour is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, otherwise he'll grow up to be an asshole and raise his kids to be assholes.

Don't drag ADHD or insane ideals into this and don't suggest it's some sort of modern mollycoddling. Internet surveillance and helicopter parenting is no substitute for moral leadership and the teaching of values. The idea that kids need constant monitoring is symptomatic of a profound societal cowardice, an abnegation of responsibility for teaching children to be decent human beings.

The solution to bullying isn't constant surveillance of children, it's teaching children how to stand up for themselves and instilling them with a sense of duty to stand up for their peers. It's creating a school community in which bullying isn't something to be swept under the carpet, but something to be fought vigorously. It's leading by example, taking the time to listen to children and treating them with the same respect that you expect them to show others. That's not easy, but it's our duty.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#56

Post by Noos » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #5

oyebenny wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what have we learned about private institutions? But that leaves us with homeschooling...

Homeschooling has come a long way. It’s a sacrifice, for sure, but far easier now than it was even 20 years ago.

You're complaining about an authoritarian public school system, but are replacing it with an even more authoritarian solution. Homeschooling keeps the child under the parent's eye 24-7 and completely captive to their worldview and idea. If that worldview and idea is for them to be "schooled" in helping their dad run his landscaping business, or being prepared to be married off, well, good luck.

Public school is important precisely because it is public. It gets the kid out to realize society exists and to deal with it as it exists. Homeschooling to me is bad because the child is dominated by their parent too much and it's not something that can really be fixed except with great effort by the child later in life.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#57

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

dqpb wrote: post #47

This should be fairly easy to DOS

Not quite as easy as your Jedi Hand Wave-y assertion makes it out to be. Letting the Authorities acclimate children to this sort of environment is dangerous for society.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#58

Post by panzagl » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

Do any of the naysayers here work in a public capacity- teacher, law enforcement, military/intelligence, etc? Have you ever been solely responsible for the security and well-being of more than, say a half-dozen total strangers? It's a hard problem, a continual tweaking of what we would see as engineering trade-offs, usually performed by people with minimal training, support, or reward who are stuck with the responsibility by default.

Supposedly we're here because we want to apply technology to hard problems- well, here's one of the hardest, and here's how it's been applied so far. Let's have a more reasonable discussion than a bunch of thin-veiled whining about how it will affect our torrents.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#59

Post by bilbo0s » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

elliekelly wrote: post #46

yepguy wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't increased monitoring also increase their liability when something does go terribly wrong?

My first thought exactly. If the school "knew" about it and dismissed the alerts as a false positive I would have to imagine that opens them up to far greater liability than simply not knowing about the behavior in the first place.

>If the school "knew" about it and dismissed the alerts as a false positive...

Knowing what you know about liability, ask yourself, what are the real chances of the school knowing something and dismissing it as a false positive?

I think if you search your heart you'd probably come to the conclusion that the fact that the school will follow up on every little thing is exactly the problem. Not everyone means "I'd kill for that test answer sheet" when they write "I'd kill for that test answer sheet".

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#60

Post by panzagl » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

esaym wrote: post #51

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

I can tell you right now (as someone that actually went to the mentioned Brazosport school) that if they had more stricter rules and monitoring "in my day", I probably wouldn't be here right now (as in being part of the HN community). I'd probably be in prison or working a minimum wage job. I was not interested in going to high school. Perhaps because there were no classes that interested me (another issue). I cut cl…

Our it could have earlier identified you as 'at-risk', and led to more positive interventions in your education. You fell through the cracks, that's hardly an optimal outcome.