蜜桃影视

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The Minneapolis school district has announced plans to end its relationship with Gaggle, a controversial digital surveillance tool that monitored students鈥� online behaviors during pandemic-induced remote learning. 

The announcement, which follows extensive reporting by 蜜桃影视 about how the tool subjected the city鈥檚 youth to pervasive round-the-clock digital surveillance, was outlined last week at the bottom of a newsletter alerting families to changes at the district. Gaggle, which uses artificial intelligence and human content moderators to track students鈥� online activities and notify district officials of 鈥渋nappropriate behaviors or potential threats to self or others,鈥� will no longer be used beginning on July 1, the district announced. 

A week after schools went remote in Minneapolis and nationally in March 2020, the district sidestepped typical procurement rules and used federal pandemic relief money to contract with Gaggle, a for-profit company that reported significant business growth when classes went online. The district has spent more than $355,000 on the tool, which monitors student behaviors on school-issued Google and Microsoft accounts, and has a contract with the company through September 2023. 

District officials said the tool saved lives but civil rights advocates and students targeted by the program have questioned its efficacy and accused the company of violating students鈥� privacy rights. 

In an email, district spokesperson Julie Schultz Brown attributed the change to 鈥渕ade in order to honor the terms of our new contract鈥� with educators. Gaggle founder and CEO Jeff Patterson said the Minneapolis district will stop using the tool at a moment when 鈥渟tudents across the United States are suffering.鈥� In June, the company alerted Minneapolis officials to 15 鈥渃ritical incidents鈥� related to suicide, death threats, violence and drug use, Patterson wrote in a statement. Nationally, the pandemic has led to a surge in youth mental health issues and . 

A recent report by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey warned that Gaggle and similar services could surveil students inappropriately, compound racial disparities in school discipline and waste tax dollars. Gaggle claims it during the 2020-21 school year, yet independent research on the tool鈥檚 effectiveness doesn鈥檛 exist. 

Teeth Logsdon-Wallace, a rising freshman in Minneapolis, saw the district鈥檚 decision to cut ties with Gaggle as a major victory. He became an outspoken Gaggle critic after a homework assignment, which discussed a previous suicide attempt and how he learned important coping skills, got flagged by the tool鈥檚 surveillance dragnet. Officials at Gaggle and the district said the tool helps identify students who are struggling emotionally and need adult intervention. But 14-year-old Logsdon-Wallace and other critics argue that digital surveillance is an inappropriate way to pinpoint students who need mental health care. Rather than helping, he said the experience 鈥渇elt violating and gross.鈥� 

鈥淲hen you鈥檙e spying on kids and their stuff, especially about mental health stuff, they鈥檙e just going to be more secretive about it,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat can just cause more danger.鈥�

While Gaggle relies on technology to ferret out students with issues like depression, Logsdon-Wallace said that he and other students are more likely to share their mental health struggles with adults at school if there鈥檚 a culture of trust. Monitoring communications through an algorithm and a team of low-paid remote workers who the students don鈥檛 even know, he said, had the opposite effect and left students more apprehensive about district computers, 鈥渨hich could be positive and negative.鈥�

While his peers learned how to better protect their own privacy online 鈥渆ven when it鈥檚 inherently being violated,鈥� he said, he worried that some may have been 鈥渂ottling up mental health issues because of it.鈥�

The district will no longer use Gaggle鈥檚 student activity monitoring tool or the company鈥檚 anonymous tip line, SpeakUp for Safety, which allows students to report potential safety threats confidentially. Instead of turning to SpeakUp, concerned parents and students should report issues to police officials with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the district wrote in its newsletter. 

District officials have said the anonymous tip line was central to its decision to contract with Gaggle, yet previous reporting by 蜜桃影视 found that the service was rarely used. Meanwhile, the digital surveillance tool routinely flagged students who made references to sex, drugs and violence on district technology. An analysis of nearly 1,300 alerts found the service flagged Minneapolis students for discussing violent impulses, eating disorders, abuse at home and suicidal plans. 

But Gaggle regularly flagged benign student chatter and personal files, including classroom assignments, casual conversations between teens and sensitive journal entries. Gaggle flags students who use keywords related to sexual orientation including 鈥済ay鈥� and 鈥渓esbian,鈥� and on at least one occasion school officials in Minneapolis outed an LGBT student to their parents. The sheer volume of student communications that got flagged by Gaggle was at times overwhelming, the Minneapolis school district鈥檚 head of security acknowledged, but he also felt like he was able to save students from dying by suicide. 

In interviews with 蜜桃影视, former content moderators at Gaggle 鈥� hundreds of whom are paid just $10 an hour on month-to-month contracts 鈥� raised serious questions about the company鈥檚 efficacy, its employment practices and its effect on students鈥� civil rights. 

Moderators said they received little training before they were given access to students鈥� sensitive materials and were pressured to prioritize speed over quality. They also reported insufficient safeguards to protect students鈥� sensitive files, including nude selfies. Patterson acknowledged that moderators, who work remotely with little supervision or oversight, could easily save copies of students鈥� nude photographs and share them on the dark web. 

As a transgender teenager who believes the school district has done too little to address bullying, Logsdon-Wallace said he already had little trust in district leaders. While Gaggle didn鈥檛 address the abuse from peers, having his sensitive experiences caught in the company鈥檚 algorithm made the situation worse.

鈥淭he very little trust I had in the administration is just destroyed,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 expect students to trust you if you鈥檝e done nothing to earn that trust.鈥�

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