Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#141

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 12:56 AM UTC

tzs wrote: post #137

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…

140 alerts in 8 months is about one alert every 1.7 days. The Brazosport Independent School District has over 12k students and 800 teachers. I'd expect 12k students are Tweeting and Facebooking hundreds, if not thousands of times a day. Furthermore, the social media monitoring, according to the article, includes adults from the surrounding community, not just people associated with the school. I can't find population…

The fact that it is happening at all?

It’s like as if there was a ghostly principal (actually more like an army of officials, according to the post) hovering above us as I was growing up.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#142

Post by Aeolun » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:00 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #110

cr0sh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kinda crazy. We say this - but I suspect we are a minority. Simply because "we" (some of us - not I) are parents of kids in these systems, but there are other parents of our age with kids in these systems who like them just fine - and I suspect there's more of them. Otherwise - why would "we" let these systems exist, if "we" are glad they didn't exist back when "we" were in school? I also suspect that those pare…

Are we the strange ones? If it's all about numbers alone, we might be... A lot of it is ignorance, I think, not in a derogatory sense but simply not understanding the nature of the technologies now being used, the potential consequences if they are abused or defective, and the other possibilities that might improve the situation. Not everyone is or wants to be a technical expert. Unfortunately, that includes the poli…

Yeah, if you’re not involved in this, the only thing you will hear about this new system is:

“We now have a system in place that will alert us to potential school shootings and other dangerous behaviour before it happens.”

Phrased like that it sounds like an indisputably positive thing.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#143

Post by guelo » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:22 AM UTC

zepto wrote: post #130

TheOperator wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't nessecarily have an issue with surveillance systems as they act as force multipliers for all sorts of noble causes. Surveillance systems should strictly be used for physical safety, anti-vandalism, and loss prevention purposes. You're not preparing kids to succeed by micromanaging them from behind a series of monitors. At all. People who intend to use the system to punish the kids for swearing by no means sho…

What noble causes do they currently act as force multipliers for?

Putting desperately poor people in jail.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#144

Post by manfredo » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:30 AM UTC

I was the type of high school student that would deliberately spam profanity and other things that would trigger this system just to spite the administrators. Privacy through obfuscation: when alarm bell rings all the time then the alarm bell becomes meaningless.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#145

Post by manfredo » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:31 AM 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…

Or 3. don't monitor anyone, but have mechanisms to report and resolve instances of harassment and bullying. Protection doesn't have to be proactive, it's perfectly fine to be reactive in most circumstances.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#146

Post by jakeogh » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #32

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not dense. These people consider that kind of stuff perfectly acceptable because they have a world view in which living in totalitarian society is acceptable. Their world view simply does not align with yours or mine. They simply do not consider the use these kind of systems to be fundamentally incompatible with free society the way you or I do.

> These people consider that kind of stuff perfectly acceptable because they have a world view in which living in totalitarian society is acceptable. Except they don't. The moment the totalitarian society started to demand conformance to something they don't like, you can be sure they would object.

They move the goalposts to the new normal, see "problems" still happening and apply the same solution iteratively to absurdim.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#147

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:35 AM UTC

zepto wrote: post #130

TheOperator wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't nessecarily have an issue with surveillance systems as they act as force multipliers for all sorts of noble causes. Surveillance systems should strictly be used for physical safety, anti-vandalism, and loss prevention purposes. You're not preparing kids to succeed by micromanaging them from behind a series of monitors. At all. People who intend to use the system to punish the kids for swearing by no means sho…

What noble causes do they currently act as force multipliers for?

Classification of people into a permanent class hierarchy.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#148

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #140

bilbo0s wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That won't work either though. I can hear it now: "Well, if by 'increasingly narrow range of acceptable behavior' you mean 'not molesting the girls and refraining from committing school shootings' then maybe they should have systems like this!" You need to have some arguments not centered around the idea of behavior. Because that idea will be thrown back at you almost immediately. Behavior is exactly what these peopl…

It’s so crazy considering the kids are exhibiting the exact same behavior as their parents 20-30 years ago. Puberty isn’t new...

From some distance it looks to me like kids today are aren't exhibiting the same behavior as their parents. Their parents were oh so much much worse behaved.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#149

Post by Gibbon1 » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #9

Mirioron wrote: post #7

I cannot believe that these people are so dense: > "Why would it have a chilling effect if the superintendent of the school might see something that slips through the system about someone went hunting?" he asked. "There's no threat." How is the following not harm? > He pointed to a recent incident in which Social Sentinel flagged a college student who threatened on Twitter to shoot his professor for scheduling an ear…

They're not dense. These people consider that kind of stuff perfectly acceptable because they have a world view in which living in totalitarian society is acceptable. Their world view simply does not align with yours or mine. They simply do not consider the use these kind of systems to be fundamentally incompatible with free society the way you or I do.

Your comment reminds me of a cautionary essay by a adolescent psychologist. Her warning was that psychologists are not a normative group because of the conformist selection process. Getting a PhD in psychology is an exercise in knuckling under. That is something that is pretty alien to a typical teenager.

As a result psychologists often see aberrant behavior in adolescents that is actually gob smack normal and ultimately harmless.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#150

Post by panzagl » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

TheOperator wrote: post #128

panzagl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yeah, nobody who is an educator would ever say such a thing. But as the spouse of one you can only hear so many stories of behavior before you start asking what the other students were learning while one kid goes on a 15 minute meltdown. But it's really dangerous where that thinking leads- so much of school performance/behavior is tied to family situations that it can go to some dark places if you replace the comp…

>You can only hear so many stories of behavior before you start asking what the other students were learning while one kid goes on a 15 minute meltdown. They're learning how to deal with people which is more important than the crap on the whiteboard. I hear so much about how our schools are held back by accomidating problem students. Yet in my experience it was the students always disrupting the lesson plan and the c…

That's a separate problem- students play dumb so class is easy as the teacher struggles to figure out how the kids made it so far. Then they get dinged when kids do miserably on standardized tests. And they don't dare just flunk them, or the parents will be in demanding the teachers head for disparaging their little genius.