The New York Times reports on schools signing up for social media–monitoring services designed to examine students’ activities, specifically following school shootings. More than 100 universities and public school districts have signed up for companies to analyze the social media behavior of their students. The monitoring companies have seen spikes in sales following notable instances of school violence. As the services grow in popularity, privacy concerns have emerged as schools gather large amounts of social media information. Students, parents and local school boards are often not notified about the monitoring programs, and their level of success in identifying legitimate threats of violence has also been questioned, the report states. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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