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This is a false dichotomy though. The two options aren’t “school never hears about bad things happening through school computer/software” and “school must monit

This is a false dichotomy though. The two options aren’t “school never hears about bad things happening through school computer/software” and “school must monitor everything”. Some simple changes just off the top of my head: - the students have a way of reporting, e.g., bullying. And it is only the information (messages and names) related to the report that the school now gets accessed to. - the school then acts on the information provided to them. It’s not reasonable for parents or others to expect the school to stop anything hateful from ever happening. But it is reasonable to expect them to do something about it after it’s been brought to their attention.

yamtaddle 4y ago
Not all the bad things will get reported. Many won't involve any participants who'd care to report them. The school will suffer regardless, if it comes out that they missed something and a bad thing happened that was connected to it (not even necessarily if it was caused by it). "But they'll just do this on other forms of chat that the school can't monitor!" Yes, they will, but the school won't face multimillion dollar lawsuits over that.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  I don’t know what the laws are where you are, but I believe that they should include the right to privacy for the students. They have a right to not live in a panopticon for 12+ years of their life because they might do something bad. I also imagine that one lawsuit like this will set a precedent, and then there will either be multi-million dollar settlements, or people will decide that children should not be placed in a panopticon. But either way, this counter argument is based on the implicit assumption that the school should be providing an “official” system through which the students should talk to each other. Get rid of that, and problem solved. Have an official channel for parent-student, parent-teacher. And let the students talk amongst themselves the way they wish.
luckylion 4y ago
> - the students have a way of reporting, e.g., bullying. And it is only the information (messages and names) related to the report that the school now gets accessed to. Does that ever work? What's the school going to do, launch an investigation and put kids into interrogations to figure out if it's true? Send in undercover students to confirm the bullying? And then what, expel the bullies and deal with lawsuits from the parents? Schools have every incentive to look the other way, and unsurprisingly, they usually do. And for students there's zero incentive to even report it. It's like living next to a known criminal and the police saying "tell us if you ever see something strange". Nobody is going to, because they understand that it's just lip service and the police isn't going to do anything, but they'll still have to live next to the criminal when he finds out someone has spoken to the police. Explaining to students that if they bully someone, they're increasing the likelihood of that person one day bringing a pump gun to school and murdering them is a much better deterrent than any "you can report it and we totally will take that seriously and do something" campaign.
- labster 4y ago
  Based on that last paragraph I’m going to assume you live in the US.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    I don't, we have (much fewer) shootings in Germany too. Not everyone who is bullied goes to shoot up the school, but in many school shootings, bullying was involved. Surprisingly, it's not the super popular kids and bullies that start shooting.
- LeonB 4y ago
  > Explaining to students that if they bully someone, they're increasing the likelihood of that person one day bringing a pump gun to school and murdering them is a much better deterrent than … Please please tell me you don’t work with kids or ever open your mouth anywhere near kids. The unintended consequences of your “advice” are beyond horrific.
  - 4y ago
kayodelycaon 4y ago
It didn’t matter if you reported anything a decade ago and doesn’t matter now. Everyone in authority does anything they can to avoid anything looking like responsibility. It’s standard policy to punish victims along with the people abusing them. None of this surveillance does anything useful. They are just looking for offenses they can apply their zero-tolerance policies to.
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  I agree that this surveillance isn’t really about fixing these issues. Hence my second point which I’ll restate as “actually do something about what the incidence that you already know about”.

yamtaddle 4y ago

Not all the bad things will get reported. Many won't involve any participants who'd care to report them. The school will suffer regardless, if it comes out that they missed something and a bad thing happened that was connected to it (not even necessarily if it was caused by it). "But they'll just do this on other forms of chat that the school can't monitor!" Yes, they will, but the school won't face multimillion dollar lawsuits over that.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
_aavaa_ 4y ago
I don’t know what the laws are where you are, but I believe that they should include the right to privacy for the students. They have a right to not live in a panopticon for 12+ years of their life because they might do something bad. I also imagine that one lawsuit like this will set a precedent, and then there will either be multi-million dollar settlements, or people will decide that children should not be placed in a panopticon. But either way, this counter argument is based on the implicit assumption that the school should be providing an “official” system through which the students should talk to each other. Get rid of that, and problem solved. Have an official channel for parent-student, parent-teacher. And let the students talk amongst themselves the way they wish.

luckylion 4y ago

> - the students have a way of reporting, e.g., bullying. And it is only the information (messages and names) related to the report that the school now gets accessed to. Does that ever work? What's the school going to do, launch an investigation and put kids into interrogations to figure out if it's true? Send in undercover students to confirm the bullying? And then what, expel the bullies and deal with lawsuits from the parents? Schools have every incentive to look the other way, and unsurprisingly, they usually do. And for students there's zero incentive to even report it. It's like living next to a known criminal and the police saying "tell us if you ever see something strange". Nobody is going to, because they understand that it's just lip service and the police isn't going to do anything, but they'll still have to live next to the criminal when he finds out someone has spoken to the police. Explaining to students that if they bully someone, they're increasing the likelihood of that person one day bringing a pump gun to school and murdering them is a much better deterrent than any "you can report it and we totally will take that seriously and do something" campaign.

labster 4y ago
Based on that last paragraph I’m going to assume you live in the US.
- luckylion 4y ago
  I don't, we have (much fewer) shootings in Germany too. Not everyone who is bullied goes to shoot up the school, but in many school shootings, bullying was involved. Surprisingly, it's not the super popular kids and bullies that start shooting.
LeonB 4y ago
> Explaining to students that if they bully someone, they're increasing the likelihood of that person one day bringing a pump gun to school and murdering them is a much better deterrent than … Please please tell me you don’t work with kids or ever open your mouth anywhere near kids. The unintended consequences of your “advice” are beyond horrific.
- 4y ago

kayodelycaon 4y ago

It didn’t matter if you reported anything a decade ago and doesn’t matter now. Everyone in authority does anything they can to avoid anything looking like responsibility. It’s standard policy to punish victims along with the people abusing them. None of this surveillance does anything useful. They are just looking for offenses they can apply their zero-tolerance policies to.

_aavaa_ 4y ago
I agree that this surveillance isn’t really about fixing these issues. Hence my second point which I’ll restate as “actually do something about what the incidence that you already know about”.