How nefarious is this, really? Wapo makes it sound, well, insert n-thousandth remark about clickbaity title here. But now that I’ve got a kid, my instinct that makes me want to keep him safe is as active as can be expected, accompanied with all of those same fears other parents will know all too well I wager.
Titles like this one on some level even seem to trigger worrying about typical new-parenty stuff. Is keeping an eye on social media stuff by schools and police really that egregious? It’s already public info anyway, isn’t it?
Schools, especially public schools, have a long history of doing things to avoid liability rather than solve student issues. Giving them still further tools to get up in the business of their students is going to hurt more than it helps.
Sentiment analysis and tipoffs can be incorrect. The cited example of “cutting” and “nobody will miss me” could be be triggered by, say, a post like “I’m cutting [class] tomorrow. Nobody will miss me.” That’s probably not what happened here, but don’t be surprised if it gets worse.
Zero-tolerance policies in schools hurt students more than they help. A simple scuffle or shove can result in police detainment nowadays–adding active policing of online posting will make things worse.
Training students to always know that somebody in a position of authority is always reading their social media postings is pretty gross, because it normalizes acceptance of universal surveillance.
Well, the central example is of a suicidal kid who will no longer have any sort of social safety net, as a result of the surveillance making it unsafe to talk to people about her feelings. Because somebody with a focus on liability and no understanding of mental-health topics thought it was a good idea to lock her in a psych ward on the basis of things she thought she was saying privately. (Edit: The article doesn’t actually say whether this was the form of treatment, and of course I hope it wasn’t, but that would be a common outcome. The bulk of the harm I see here applies regardless.)
But re: your question, it’s not nefarious, really - to me that word suggests “secretive and intentionally malicious”. This is being done openly, by people who have no understanding of the harm it causes.
Is that example from the story? How do you identify suicide risk without looking for it? To me it sounded like the system worked precisely because it did identify someone at risk.
The system worked as intended, but I don’t agree that the result was more help than harm. Of course, it’s hard to know because there’s so little information, and in part I’m reacting emotionally based on the dozens of similar stories I’ve heard.
I also don’t agree that we have enough information to know that this particular instance of spying identified someone in imminent danger. What people who’ve never been suicidal have trouble understanding is that self-harm is an attempt to not die, and suicidal ideation is a lifelong truth - it is not a particularly great indicator of intent, since it’s a background thing that never goes away. But people who don’t understand suddenly become aware of it, and panic. And that hurts, because it’s rejection of who the person is.
I regret that I don’t have a good primer to link to, offhand, for more detail on how the common responses to self-harm and suicidal ideation (not the same thing) are harmful rather than helpful. There’s this common notion that professional help is … um … help, even when it’s coercive, even when it comes at the expense of violating privacy. Very often, that private space to express their feelings is the only thing that’s keeping people alive.
In the absence of information about the specifics, I’ll make a general remark.
Teenagers usually have a pretty good idea whether it would be safe to tell their parents or school counselors about their mental health, or not - and have, in fact, already tried to and been ignored. Teens aren’t usually suicidal for no reason; there is very often an abusive situation either at home or at school, and the system for remedying that flat-out does not work most of the time. The most common failure modes are “I know your parents, they’re not abusive” and “making an allegation like that could get you in a lot of trouble”. When young people choose not to seek official help, that’s very often a rational decision. Anything that takes that decision away from the person most affected is wrong.
I don’t know the outcome in this case, but I know that spying is wrong, and that there has not been an adequate public debate on what it means to deny children their privacy.
Yeah, I jumped to a conclusion there, and have edited up-thread. Sorry about that.
The part I really wanted to emphasize was that prior to the events described, the student in question had a private space to express her feelings. I have no idea whether any of her peers actually read it, but being able to talk about difficult things has immense benefit, a different kind of benefit than what a therapist can do.
She no longer has that space, because it’s been proven that anything she writes could be used against her. With the surveillance in place, she can’t even make another account to get that back.
Thanks. I think your comments provide a good perspective. It’s just such a different perspective I wasn’t sure if we were talking about the same article. :)
That’s completely fair! As an ongoing effort I’m trying to learn how to communicate better about it, because yes, it really is a very different perspective from what a typical reader sees in stories like this. So, that feedback is helpful.
But now that I’ve got a kid, my instinct that makes me want to keep him safe is as active as can be expected, accompanied with all of those same fears other parents will know all too well I wager.
Keeping kids safe? Usually this involves helping them grow up into responsible, reasonable adults.
This system is everything but that and democracy will suffer from it when these kids are old enough to vote.
Is anyone seriously expecting these kids to stand up fight for their rights when they have been taught their whole life that there are no limits to violating their boundaries by both parents and government?
How nefarious is this, really? Wapo makes it sound, well, insert n-thousandth remark about clickbaity title here. But now that I’ve got a kid, my instinct that makes me want to keep him safe is as active as can be expected, accompanied with all of those same fears other parents will know all too well I wager.
Titles like this one on some level even seem to trigger worrying about typical new-parenty stuff. Is keeping an eye on social media stuff by schools and police really that egregious? It’s already public info anyway, isn’t it?
Here are the problems:
It’s just really bad precedent.
Well, the central example is of a suicidal kid who will no longer have any sort of social safety net, as a result of the surveillance making it unsafe to talk to people about her feelings. Because somebody with a focus on liability and no understanding of mental-health topics thought it was a good idea to lock her in a psych ward on the basis of things she thought she was saying privately. (Edit: The article doesn’t actually say whether this was the form of treatment, and of course I hope it wasn’t, but that would be a common outcome. The bulk of the harm I see here applies regardless.)
But re: your question, it’s not nefarious, really - to me that word suggests “secretive and intentionally malicious”. This is being done openly, by people who have no understanding of the harm it causes.
Is that example from the story? How do you identify suicide risk without looking for it? To me it sounded like the system worked precisely because it did identify someone at risk.
It’s the only example in the story, in fact.
The system worked as intended, but I don’t agree that the result was more help than harm. Of course, it’s hard to know because there’s so little information, and in part I’m reacting emotionally based on the dozens of similar stories I’ve heard.
I also don’t agree that we have enough information to know that this particular instance of spying identified someone in imminent danger. What people who’ve never been suicidal have trouble understanding is that self-harm is an attempt to not die, and suicidal ideation is a lifelong truth - it is not a particularly great indicator of intent, since it’s a background thing that never goes away. But people who don’t understand suddenly become aware of it, and panic. And that hurts, because it’s rejection of who the person is.
I regret that I don’t have a good primer to link to, offhand, for more detail on how the common responses to self-harm and suicidal ideation (not the same thing) are harmful rather than helpful. There’s this common notion that professional help is … um … help, even when it’s coercive, even when it comes at the expense of violating privacy. Very often, that private space to express their feelings is the only thing that’s keeping people alive.
In the absence of information about the specifics, I’ll make a general remark.
Teenagers usually have a pretty good idea whether it would be safe to tell their parents or school counselors about their mental health, or not - and have, in fact, already tried to and been ignored. Teens aren’t usually suicidal for no reason; there is very often an abusive situation either at home or at school, and the system for remedying that flat-out does not work most of the time. The most common failure modes are “I know your parents, they’re not abusive” and “making an allegation like that could get you in a lot of trouble”. When young people choose not to seek official help, that’s very often a rational decision. Anything that takes that decision away from the person most affected is wrong.
I don’t know the outcome in this case, but I know that spying is wrong, and that there has not been an adequate public debate on what it means to deny children their privacy.
Ok, I was wondering how the example went from treatment to locked up.
Yeah, I jumped to a conclusion there, and have edited up-thread. Sorry about that.
The part I really wanted to emphasize was that prior to the events described, the student in question had a private space to express her feelings. I have no idea whether any of her peers actually read it, but being able to talk about difficult things has immense benefit, a different kind of benefit than what a therapist can do.
She no longer has that space, because it’s been proven that anything she writes could be used against her. With the surveillance in place, she can’t even make another account to get that back.
I think that impact is too easy to gloss over.
Thanks. I think your comments provide a good perspective. It’s just such a different perspective I wasn’t sure if we were talking about the same article. :)
That’s completely fair! As an ongoing effort I’m trying to learn how to communicate better about it, because yes, it really is a very different perspective from what a typical reader sees in stories like this. So, that feedback is helpful.
Keeping kids safe? Usually this involves helping them grow up into responsible, reasonable adults. This system is everything but that and democracy will suffer from it when these kids are old enough to vote.
Is anyone seriously expecting these kids to stand up fight for their rights when they have been taught their whole life that there are no limits to violating their boundaries by both parents and government?