NDAs Are Problematic. That Doesn't Mean We Should Ban Them.
As the catalyst for the #MeToo movement when his serial abuse of women first emerged in 2017, Weinstein has also sparked a debate around the use of nondisclosure agreements in jurisdictions across the western world. These are contracts between an employer and a departing employee originally designed to protect trade secrets, but which are increasingly used to cover up wrongdoing including discrimination, sexual harassment and even assault.
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Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Schools are using AI surveillance to protect students. It also leads to false alarms
Lesley Mathis knows what her daughter said was wrong. But she never expected the 13-year-old girl would get arrested for it. The teenage girl made an offensive joke while chatting online with her classmates, triggering the school's surveillance software. Before the morning was even over, the Tennessee eighth grader was under arrest. She was interrogated, strip-searched and spent the night in a jail cell, her mother says. Earlier in the day, her friends had teased the teen about her tanned complexion and called her 'Mexican,' even though she's not. When a friend asked what she was planning for Thursday, she wrote: 'on Thursday we kill all the Mexico's.' Mathis said the comments were 'wrong' and 'stupid,' but context showed they were not a threat. 'It made me feel like, is this the America we live in?' Mathis said of her daughter's arrest. 'And it was this stupid, stupid technology that is just going through picking up random words and not looking at context.' Surveillance systems in American schools increasingly monitor everything students write on school accounts and devices. Thousands of school districts across the country use software like Gaggle and Lightspeed Alert to track kids' online activities, looking for signs they might hurt themselves or others. With the help of artificial intelligence, technology can dip into online conversations and immediately notify both school officials and law enforcement. Educators say the technology has saved lives. But critics warn it can criminalize children for careless words. "It has routinized law enforcement access and presence in students' lives, including in their home,' said Elizabeth Laird, a director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Schools ratchet up vigilance for threats In a country weary of school shootings, several states have taken a harder line on threats to schools. Among them is Tennessee, which passed a 2023 zero-tolerance law requiring any threat of mass violence against a school to be reported immediately to law enforcement. The 13-year-old girl arrested in August 2023 had been texting with friends on a chat function tied to her school email at Fairview Middle School, which uses Gaggle to monitor students' accounts. (The Associated Press is withholding the girl's name to protect her privacy. The school district did not respond to a request for comment.) Taken to jail, the teen was interrogated and strip-searched, and her parents weren't allowed to talk to her until the next day, according to a lawsuit they filed against the school system. She didn't know why her parents weren't there. 'She told me afterwards, 'I thought you hated me.' That kind of haunts you,' said Mathis, the girl's mother. A court ordered eight weeks of house arrest, a psychological evaluation and 20 days at an alternative school for the girl. Gaggle's CEO, Jeff Patterson, said in an interview that the school system did not use Gaggle the way it is intended. The purpose is to find early warning signs and intervene before problems escalate to law enforcement, he said. 'I wish that was treated as a teachable moment, not a law enforcement moment,' said Patterson. Private student chats face unexpected scrutiny Students who think they are chatting privately among friends often do not realize they are under constant surveillance, said Shahar Pasch, an education lawyer in Florida. One teenage girl she represented made a joke about school shootings on a private Snapchat story. Snapchat's automated detection software picked up the comment, the company alerted the FBI, and the girl was arrested on school grounds within hours. Alexa Manganiotis, 16, said she was startled by how quickly monitoring software works. West Palm Beach's Dreyfoos School of the Arts, which she attends, last year piloted Lightspeed Alert, a surveillance program. Interviewing a teacher for her school newspaper, Alexa discovered two students once typed something threatening about that teacher on a school computer, then deleted it. Lightspeed picked it up, and 'they were taken away like five minutes later,' Alexa said. Teenagers face steeper consequences than adults for what they write online, Alexa said. 'If an adult makes a super racist joke that's threatening on their computer, they can delete it, and they wouldn't be arrested," she said. Amy Bennett, chief of staff for Lightspeed Systems, said that the software helps understaffed schools 'be proactive rather than punitive' by identifying early warning signs of bullying, self-harm, violence or abuse. The technology can also involve law enforcement in responses to mental health crises. In Florida's Polk County Schools, a district of more than 100,000 students, the school safety program received nearly 500 Gaggle alerts over four years, officers said in public Board of Education meetings. This led to 72 involuntary hospitalization cases under the Baker Act, a state law that allows authorities to require mental health evaluations for people against their will if they pose a risk to themselves or others. 'A really high number of children who experience involuntary examination remember it as a really traumatic and damaging experience — not something that helps them with their mental health care,' said Sam Boyd, an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Polk and West Palm Beach school districts did not provide comments. An analysis shows a high rate of false alarms Information that could allow schools to assess the software's effectiveness, such as the rate of false alerts, is closely held by technology companies and unavailable publicly unless schools track the data themselves. Gaggle alerted more than 1,200 incidents to the Lawrence, Kansas, school district in a recent 10-month period. But almost two-thirds of those alerts were deemed by school officials to be non-issues — including over 200 false alarms from student homework, according to an Associated Press analysis of data received via a public records request. Students in one photography class were called to the principal's office over concerns Gaggle had detected nudity. The photos had been automatically deleted from the students' Google Drives, but students who had backups of the flagged images on their own devices showed it was a false alarm. District officials said they later adjusted the software's settings to reduce false alerts. Natasha Torkzaban, who graduated in 2024, said she was flagged for editing a friend's college essay because it had the words 'mental health.' 'I think ideally we wouldn't stick a new and shiny solution of AI on a deep-rooted issue of teenage mental health and the suicide rates in America, but that's where we're at right now,' Torkzaban said. She was among a group of student journalists and artists at Lawrence High School who filed a lawsuit against the school system last week, alleging Gaggle subjected them to unconstitutional surveillance. School officials have said they take concerns about Gaggle seriously, but also say the technology has detected dozens of imminent threats of suicide or violence. 'Sometimes you have to look at the trade for the greater good,' said Board of Education member Anne Costello in a July 2024 board meeting. Two years after their ordeal, Mathis said her daughter is doing better, although she's still 'terrified' of running into one of the school officers who arrested her. One bright spot, she said, was the compassion of the teachers at her daughter's alternative school. They took time every day to let the kids share their feelings and frustrations, without judgment. 'It's like we just want kids to be these little soldiers, and they're not,' said Mathis. 'They're just humans.' ___ This reporting reviewed school board meetings posted on YouTube, courtesy of DistrictView, a dataset created by researchers Tyler Simko, Mirya Holman and Rebecca Johnson. ___ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Sharon Lurye, The Associated Press
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Aberdeen, Celtic & Thistle disciplined over pyros
Aberdeen, Celtic and Partick Thistle have been disciplined by the Scottish Professional Football League for their fans' pyrotechnic displays at the end of last season. The two Premiership clubs will have to reduce the number of fans by 200 if there is a repeat of the "unacceptable conduct", while Championship outfit Thistle would face the closure of a stand after their display was also followed by a pitch invasion. It follows an investigation by the league into "large-scale, organised and illegal pyrotechnic displays" at the games between Aberdeen and Celtic, Celtic and St Mirren, plus Ayr United v Partick Thistle. 'Rangers in talks with Betis' Mendy' - gossip Who has your Premiership club brought in & let go? - summer 2025 "All three clubs have been found to have breached SPFL rules in failing to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that their supporters did not engage in "unacceptable conduct" at those matches," the league said in a statement. "The clubs were also found to have failed to identify or take proportionate disciplinary measures against the supporters responsible for the pyrotechnic displays and, in Partick Thistle's case, also against those who carried out the pitch invasion." The invasion led to a two-minute delay in the Premiership play-off quarter-final second leg at Somerset Park on 9 May, while a similar delay was caused by Thistle fans using pyrotechnics and throwing them on to the pitch. The pyrotechnics display by Aberdeen fans during their 14 May match against Celtic led to Sky Sports "having to issue an apology for interruptions to the broadcast following the display, which caused significant smoke clouds to form within the stadium". Celtic supporters carried out pyrotechnic displays in the north-east corner of Celtic Park during and prior to the final league game of the season at home to St Mirren on 17 May. "These incidents caused a health and safety risk to fellow supporters, players and those working at matches; as well as a significant inconvenience to thousands of supporters at the matches and fans watching these games at home," the SPFL added.
Yahoo
17 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Cocaine dealer found with 'deal line' phone as police seize £1,600 of drugs from duo
Two men have been jailed after police found them with £1,600 of cocaine in Yarm. Terrence Smith and Peter Walker were found guilty of possession with intent to supply the Class A drug. On Tuesday, October 8, Force Intelligence Officers and officers from Stockton Neighbourhoods Team executed a drug warrant at an address on Meynells Walk. When police arrived at the property Smith was caught leaving the address. Smith was attempting to get into a vehicle parked outside. READ MORE: A689 crash: Major Teesside route reopens after early morning collision READ MORE: Thornaby takeaway owners 'terrified' after 'Asian gold' hunting travelling gang swipe £40k of items When officers detained him and searched him, he was in possession of two packages containing £1,200 worth of cocaine. Walker, who had just left the address in a taxi before police arrived, was stopped by officers on Thornaby Road in Thornaby. He was searched and found in possession of 20 small packages which were £20 cocaine deals, with a total value of £400. A search of the address led officers to seize a range of drug dealing paraphernalia. Smith, 35, from Yarm, and Walker, 37, from Thornaby, were both arrested and later charged with possession with intent to supply cocaine. The police investigation found that Walker would travel to Smith's home in Yarm daily to collect drugs to deal in the Thornaby area. Smith was found to be in possession of a phone hosting the 'deal line' and then would direct Walker where to deal the drugs in Thornaby. Both men pleaded guilty to the charges when they appeared before Teesside Crown Court. On Thursday July 31, Smith was sentenced to four years and one month and Walker three years in prison. Inspector James Allen, from Cleveland Police 's Force Intelligence, said of the case: 'Police are gathering intelligence in relation to drugs operations such as this all the time, to disrupt and take down these drugs networks. It's not a case of whether you will get caught, rather a case of when you will get caught. 'Drugs cause misery to our communities, with dealers preying on the vulnerable for their own greed. If you are dealing drugs, we will catch up with you and you will be put before the courts.' Anyone with information regarding drug dealing in their area, is asked to contact Cleveland Police on 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously either online or by calling 0800 555 111.
