Gaggle is a company that monitors student messages and social media posts in the K-12 system. According to this report, the company "will no longer flag students who use words like 'gay' and 'lesbian' online, citing greater acceptance of queer kids in schools." This follows a report in Vice arguing that the surveillance makes it a lot harder for them to access the online resources they need. The 74's report depicts the issue as part of the wider culture wars in the U.S., but the Vice coverage focuses on whether the surveillance even 'works' in meeting Gaggle's stated objective of saving students' lives. But even without the false positives, would it be appropriate to surveil young people in this way? "Our contemporary surveillance technologies indoctrinate our students, our citizens … into a culture of observation in which they learn to be watched and are accepting of unremitting surveillance as a norm," says the Vice report.
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