They’re just thinking of the children…

http://news.msn.com/us/in-calif-district-students-facebook-posts-are-closely-watched

What’s the best way to trial a service designed to monitor what people are saying and thinking outside of a particular environment?  Why, disguise it as a means to protect children, of course!

The firm referenced in the article is providing a valuable service by snooping on what America’s children are writing and saying in social media circles outside of their educational environment.  They argue that they are more accurate because the information is eventually interpreted by a human being vs. a computer.  Supposedly this allows them to eliminate false positives due to better understanding of contextual scenarios.  Of course, it also allows them to monitor, evaluate and effectively regulate speech outside of school, which apparently has been assumed to be a right they, and by extension, the schools that employ them, already possess.

The company is already showcasing some of their alleged success stories.  Once their concept has been proved in its existing setting, it is not a difficult leap to bring it to corporate america.  After all, who else has such a vested interest in monitoring the loyalty of its’ employees and their treatment of their corporate brand.  This is not new in the working world, as corporations are becoming ever more aggressive in the monitoring of the employee’s actions online, especially outside of the work environment.  This is a first, as far as I know, in which this particular brand of broad monitoring has been offered as a service in and of itself.  This will be an advantage for companies looking to keep their IT and HR departments focused on other projects and so should have little barrier.  I can see it being a defacto option for staffing agencies within 5 years.

I have other thoughts brewing about this, but they need time to steep.

By Dan Granot

I chose the Shorter Whitman because of his work, "Song of Myself" and because of my self-deprecating sense of humor. I am under no illusion that I can write successful essays or poetry, but I have been known to write them anyway.

1 comment

  1. Of course it’s for ‘the Children.’ A basic rule of tyrany is never do anything for yourself: The greed and power hunger are too apparent.

    Kings used to call on divine right: ‘God mean’s for me to rule in is name or I wouldn’t have been born King. Do what God says. Follow me.’

    Karl Marx demanded atheism so Socialists said, ‘Historical Determinism makes inevitable what I want. Whatever that is. Don’t struggle’

    Since we no longer have real kings and Marxists are liking their wounds those who want to nail the jello of society to the wall and make us all quiet and predictable need a new god. We love our children. ‘That’ll do.’ So they say, ‘If you love your Children you must do what’s right. Of course, We are the one’s who understand what is right.’

    Perhaps this is why the atheistic portion of the Left keeps trying to tell us what Christianity says. ‘Christ wouldn’t own a – insert hated device here – so you should not either. [Psst don’t even look at Luke 22:36. Psalm 144 doesn’t exist.] Sit quietly and accept whatever we say. Remember “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” Jesus wouldn’t throw the bankers out of the Temple of society, would he?’

    They suborn a God that competes with their ideology. Did you ever notice that those who push sin taxes – fat, cigarette, 20 oz drinks, sugar, carbon – never seem to believe in Biblical sins? I am fairly sure cigarettes and slurpees were never named as sins in the Bible. And Deuteronomy seemed at one time to have covered everything. I am sure lying to congress and bearing false witness were not sins because their intentions were sooo awesome.

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