Research Paper Example on Monitoring Kids Social Media

Imagine you are at home and see something on your phone that gets your mind racing. You go on to your Instagram account to say something like “the way the school runs their funding is dumb and Ms.Principal doesn't get how hard the band works”. You walk into school the next day not thinking a thing of it, but the school resource officer calls you out of your hour. You are sat down and told that you will be serving 6 after-school detentions for violent speech towards school staff. You just don't understand what you did, just then they show you the post you made. You feel violated you posted that to your private account there's no way anyone but your close friends could have seen that. This is how students have felt recently over social media monitoring. Events like a cheerleader being kicked off the team for vulgar words have led to a heated debate in the school system about whether or not schools should be able to monitor and punish students for things they say or do online. There have been many low-level federal cases stating contradictory things from each other. The pro side is saying it violates innocent until proven guilty and the con side is saying that it can help stop school shootings. This has been a debate since the beginning of the internet. While Schools monitoring kids can stop violent attacks from happening. There is no solid evidence to show that it will help ensure safety. Schools punishing kids for online speech is an invasion of the students' privacy and human rights as well as being unlawful due to these posts being made outside of school property. 

At the same time monitoring students' social media violates their privacy and violates their human right to free speech due to criminal behavior already being reported by members of the community. The event of monitoring students leads to a pointless headache for schools and kids because according to  "Snap Judgment: Should Schools Act as Community Hall Monitors?" by Joshuah Dunn he states how criminal activity is already reported by saying, “Educators should, of course, refer to student speech that rises to the level of criminal conduct--say, for example, a true threat--to appropriate authorities. But schools are not community hall monitors, and the Constitution requires the protection of First Amendment rights, even when they are exercised by young people of questionable judgment” (2).  This quote helps in emphasizing that if something of criminal behavior happens it will be reported by members of the community. This is telling us that monitoring every student's postings is completely unnecessary. Monitoring kids for every post they make is completely unethical and irresponsible. This will only lead to the school overstepping its authority, violating rights, and will lead to lawsuits by kids and parents for schools monitoring minors without their consent. Similarly, Martha Derthick tells us in "Digital Discipline: We Aren't Sure If You Can Say That.", that the supreme court has stated that punishing kids for online speech is a violation of the first amendment as kids are not defacing peoples names and are simply stating their opinion and feelings on topics and situations (3). This proves that schools monitoring and punishing kids is an overstep of rights and the student's boundaries. Overly broad surveillance could also unfavorably impact fundamental individual rights of juniors and others. Studies show that when the public realizes they are under surveillance when connected to the internet, they are more inclined to self-censor and give up communicating with positive groups or individuals. Protecting juniors from violence should be a necessity for schools, but when the new school period starts this fall, officials should prevent redundant surveillance and treat students connected to the internet in a way that doesn’t intervene needlessly with rights. As shown above, you can see that monitoring students' social media is unjust, violates their rights, and is an invasion of privacy.

Following this If these posts happen outside of school, the schools have no right to punish these students. Schools have no legal or moral right to monitor their students outside of school. When an act of free speech happens outside of school, the school isn't allowed to insert themselves into the situation and punish the student as Joshua Dunn tells us that the lower courts have ruled in the past that schools can't punish students for posting outside-of-school posts. Student speech, according to the Supreme Court, should only be disciplined if it causes a great educational disruption, violates the rights of other students, is lewd, or is drug-related. The court has made clear that these exceptions do not apply to out-of-school speech (5). When you were a kid, you had ups and downs, and now with social media, kids can express these feelings more openly. They shouldn't be punished for that. They should be allowed to do that no matter what. In addition, Peter Schmidt tells us in "Colleges Are Divided on the Need for New Speech Policies." that the Kansas board's guidance has replied to criticism by asking a board of faculty and staff representatives from each campus in the institutional structure to review the procedure and suggest changes (2). The board has formulated new terminology, to be absorbed by the board in April, that emphasizes traditional protections of the right to education and freedom of speech. As you can see, the school board made up of staff is also concerned with things being taken the wrong way from their online posts. You wouldn't like your employer going through your phone and punishing you for expressing your opinion on your own time. As has been noted above, the school can't punish kids for what they do in their own time on their devices.

In contrast, many people believe schools watching kids' social media can prevent attacks by looking at what kids post and whether or not it's violent. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) told us recently in "Safety in Schools: Will Social Media Monitoring Help Keep Kids Safe?" They state that recently in Canada a 14-year-old girl attacked her school with a knife and is facing 17 charges. They don't know her motives but authorities are saying some of her social media posts may have foreshadowed her attack (3). Some School attackers have had posts showing a fascination with violent things such as knives, guns, and details on past school shootings. However, there have been no attacks stopped by social media monitoring; it has only stopped protests violating free speech. The CBC also tells us in the same article about how there have been no attacks stopped from social media monitoring. The only events that have been stopped by schools monitoring have been threats of protesting things like dress codes and masks or have stopped homework strikes that students were going to carry out (4). When kids are constantly watched and have eyes over their shoulder in and out of school it makes the kids scared and stressed while possibly leading to a bigger disposition on school authority. In summary, there is no evidence to show that monitoring social media posts has not stopped any attacks from happening therefore there's no reason to monitor all student's online posts.

Above all, we need to stand up for the rights of kids everywhere. We need to do this to help prevent children from being scared to post their opinion online. This will help promote peace among students and staff. To sum up, we need to show schools that they can't monitor kids social media posts because schools controlling and punishing kids for on the Internet speech is a violation of privacy and violates their rights as a result of Kids are making these posts apart from school and shouldn’t be punished as it never happened in school, and It violates freedom of speech and punishes kids for only asserting their reactions on certain issues.