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?
I do not believe that this sort of monitoring should be allowed. Beyond it being an invasion of a students privacy, I do not think it is an effective preventative measure in such a serious issue. While it is true that safety of students is part of the job of a school, I believe that it is up to the students to take care of their own mental and physical health. The school should provide options for students struggling mentally, but following them on social media and suggesting that they seek help based upon the findings may create an even greater divide because they students may feel offended that the school took it upon themselves to try to protect them by monitoring what they are saying online. Most teenagers aren't particularly fond of adult supervision and monitoring and a lot of them find a safe haven in the internet where they can express themselves either to their peers or anonymously without worrying about their superiors judging them or making opinions based on their thoughts. For a school to take this away from students by monitoring their social media posts would be too much of an invasion of privacy.
ReplyDeleteLike I said in response to Lily's post, I think that the monitoring of social media that is made public is totally fine. I do not think that school admin, officials, or any third-party the school may hire should have access to students' passwords and accounts. To me, that obviously violates a basic level of privacy. Yes, it's a scary world we live in with Snapchat and other timed messaging apps, but that doesn't mean that schools should be monitoring kids in their most intimate social activities. If anything that should be the responsibility of a parent to decide and execute. But like I said, if the social media "post" or information is public (like if it's posted from a public profile and everyone can see it), then I don't see a problem there.
ReplyDeleteYou note the role of parents in potentially monitoring their student's social media use. Doesn't the school essentially act as the student's parent during the school day?
DeleteYes, but a teacher can never fully substitute a parent. The relationship between a parent and their child is far more personal, private, and less scrutinezed than the relationship between a teacher and a child. I believe that extends to the privacy of kids as well.
DeleteI agree with Ian - schools should have the option to monitor publicly available social media accounts, but they should not have the ability to request passwords or actual access to the social media accounts. Students posting information without adequately modifying their privacy settings to restrict public access do not have a reasonable expectation to privacy. However, asking for passwords violates (in my mind) the privacy of the students and grossly overreaches the responsibility of the school. Although I think schools should have the ability to monitor publicly available social media accounts, I don't think that doing so is necessarily useful. A better use of resources would be the creation of a hotline or resource number where students could text, call, email, IM, etc. information about potential safety issues for investigation. If the hotline were semi-anonymous (e.g. schools could see some information to identify if the reports were coming from the same person, but not who the person was - this discourages abuse of the program), I think that students would willingly report potentially harmful behavior.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the hotline report alleges that a particular student is engaging in harassment and cyber bullying on their Facebook page, but only "friends" can see the posts. Should the school have the ability in those circumstances to require the accused student to allow school officials to access the account?
DeleteThe burden of proof should rest on the accuser, not the accused. In other words, the student anonymously reporting the potentially harmful behavior should have to include screenshots or some other kind of evidence in cases where evidence exists.
DeleteIf a post is set to allow anyone in the public to see it, then monitoring situations on social media seems fine to me. The moment you request access to a student's password, or require that the school be able to view private posts, you have crossed a very big, very bright red line in my book. That is an absolute violation of privacy and I disagree with it completely. It is not sound policy, it is invasive, and it is wrong. Period.
ReplyDeleteAre there any circumstances where your bright red line could be justifiably crossed to allow a school to view an otherwise private post? e.g. if needed to investigate alleged threats of harm to another student?
DeleteI think threats of harm or issues of legality would warrant the investigation of a private account. But it's also worth noting that continuous surveillance of private accounts my drive those types of behavior into fake accounts or places on the internet harder to reach. So those special circumstances would be even more difficult to monitor. Yet another reason I think administrators shouldn't monitor these accounts.
DeleteI don’t believe schools should monitor student social media accounts. As we have come to a clear consensus that profiles that are public are “free game” as the information is to public— there is no problem in that situation. But to constantly monitor student social media account is a waste of time and money. I don’t think monitoring would be sound public policy for the privacy invasions Lily mentioned in her blog post and the reasons I mentioned before.
ReplyDeleteWe will discuss a hypothetical in class today that will test your concern over wasting money on social monitoring.
DeleteI don't think school administrators should actively monitor K-12 student social media feeds, or require students to disclose their passwords. If a feed is public then I don't have a problem with administrators viewing it, especially if a problem is brought to their attention, but I don't think active, ongoing monitoring is their job, and it wastes resources. Instead, I think schools should educate students about responsible internet and social media use, and have a system for students to report cyberbullying or other problematic posts that students understand (like how to recognize a red flag post and what will happen if they report it). I think K-12 is an important time for students to learn to navigate the real world. Having trusting relationships with adults (school administrators) where students are able to make their own choices and receive genuine support when they need it is a better approach to helping students than having adults monitor them, because monitoring implies that adults don't trust the students, and have a better sense of how to solve problems, when that is not always the case.
ReplyDeleteEstablishing a system for students to report cyber bullying is an approach many schools have adopted. But, if the hotline or other system of reporting reveals an alleged instance of cyber bullying would those circumstances justify school monitoring of the students involved?
DeletePossibly. For me it would depend on the severity of the situation, whether or not monitoring seems to be the most effective option to handle the problem, and so long as there were clear guidelines for administrators defining what circumstances would warrant monitoring, who would do the monitoring, who would be monitored and informed, and how long the monitoring would go on. There would also need to be guidelines for responding to anything that is discovered as a result of the monitoring. These types of rules would be so that administrators would not overstep their role, and be monitoring to truly help the students.
DeleteThe fact that they are asking for the passwords of the students I believe is an invasion of privacy. It would be different if they were just monitoring the students accounts which I think is okay. I think its a waste of time and money for school administrators to monitor every student, however if thats what they think helps so be It. Any forcing of accounts I think is privacy breaching. For example if the account is private and the administrators are forcing the students to accept them in, I don't think that is okay. It should be the students decision, if they're private, whether or not they want the school administration to follow them. I think that monitoring social media personally isn't the way to go, I think the way to go would be education and having more of a "you can talk to anyone about your problems" mentality with the students.
ReplyDeleteWhat if education has not worked in the past and there is a history of cyber bullying? Would those circumstances justify monitoring of all students public posts or would that still be a waste of time and money?
DeleteWhile schools shouldn't be required to monitor a student's posts to social media, they should still be allowed to oversee the posts if they so desire. If a student posts something publicly, than everyone will be able to view it, whether they're a student, faculty, or outsider. Schools should be able to look for and be informed of posts that might be significant to ongoing cyber bullying or violence. They should also be able to take steps to address issues, such as by contacting law enforcement or talking to the individual in question. However, students should not be forced to give up their passwords to their accounts. This would be a massive breach of privacy, and trusting others with your passwords could easily result in abuse. On top of that, if someone is really determined, they could find ways to create anonymous accounts and avoid detection all together. While everyone should have the ability to monitor public posts, schools do not have the right to gain access to the student's accounts.
ReplyDeleteIf school officials become aware of alleged cyber bullying by a particular student, shouldn't they have the option of deciding not to go to law enforcement, but addressing the issue directly with the student and by requiring him/her to give school officials access to all their social media accounts for future monitoring?
DeleteI agree that student safety is an important issue for schools. I also agree that schools should be able to monitor public social media posts. I do not, however, agree that schools should request the passwords to their student's social media accounts. Not only does this seem like an invasion of privacy, but it also brings up many questions such as who at the school would have access to students social media accounts and what would they be allowed to do with such access. What type of oversight would there be. Giving schools access to student's private social media accounts just leads to more privacy concerns while minimally increasing student safety, if at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the only person who has access is the school principal and the only time the principal could require a student to reveal their password is where the principal has a reasonable suspicion that the student has been cyber bullying a fellow student?
DeleteI don't think that schools should be able to require students to give up their passwords. Many potential problems could arise from this, the school's would have full access to the accounts and could, potentially, post things through a students account impersonating a student. Other concerns include where and how the passwords would be stored. This is a separate issue from whether the school could monitor the accounts. Anything that is posted on a social network is shared with a third party so the students can't have an expectation of privacy and the school has every legal right to monitor student accounts. If a school does monitor accounts I think they should only look for language not covered under the 1st amendment and if they feel action is necessary, report the language to law enforcement.
ReplyDeleteWhat if the passwords are stored in an encrypted manner and monitoring is not done by a human, but by an algorithm that searches for certain words that are indicative of cyber bullying or threats? Only where such words are triggered does a human access the social media site and then only the principal. Is such a system more acceptable?
DeleteI disagree with surveillance like this. As mentioned in the 4th article from our readings, reporting bullying to an adult only works around 30% of the time (and makes the situation worse 30% of the time). Instead, school officials should work to foster an environment that encourages children to stand up for each other, as well as improve their own approach to handling bullying. Ideally, there should be enough peer pressure AGAINST bullying to nip it in the bud. Also, if a student reports to officials that they are being bullied via social media, then the victim should be able to just pull up the posts/messages in question.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I can absolutely see an underfunded elementary/high school (like my own) keeping all of the passwords in plain text, or even on a sheet of paper. Proper data storage is just too expensive for many schools today.
Assume that funding for storing passwords in an encrypted fashion with tight restrictions on who may access is not an issue and that efforts to create an environment where students police themselves has failed in the past. Does that justify the surveillance?
DeleteThe idea of school officials monitoring my every move on social media makes me extremely uncomfortable. However, if the account is public, I can’t really control who sees it so I can’t complain too much. I also think that requiring students to give up their passwords is a gross invasion of privacy. Ultimately, I do not agree with this surveillance but I also think an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in regards to anything they post online.
ReplyDeleteDoes a student have a privacy right to anonymously engage in threats or harassment of fellow students? If school officials have a reasonable suspicion that a particular student is engaging in such activity of his/her social media account does that override the privacy interest and allow school officials to compel disclosure of a password?
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