One of the more dangerous features of student monitoring tools like GoGuardian, Gaggle, and Bark is their “flagging” functionality. The tools can scan web pages, documents in students’ cloud drives, emails, video content, and more for keywords about topics like sex, drugs, and violence. They then…
Horrifying that these tools exist at all, the article brings up it has a “greater negative impact on students from low-income families, black students, hispanic students, and those with learning differences” as well. It sounds like this just harms everyone. I do not trust the excuse of the tools being intended to prevent harm in the slightest.
Schools should be a place students can trust, acting to uplift and support them. But if the schools don’t even trust the students, how can we expect it to be a safe place?
This amount of surveillance is never okay. I don’t understand how it’s becoming so normal.
