I think it's a good idea but will have imperfect results. There are also obvious limitations. They can't possibly monitor the private posts or the in game verbal comments. I think the most concerning posts would be found there. Also, who is going to monitor the monitoring company to make sure they are doing their job? Who is going to make sure the school follows up with an investigation? The parent with doctors appointments? I think we have all had experiences with trying to fix a problem and banging our head against the wall because of infective treatment plans or complete brush off of concerns. I do believe it takes a village to raise a child. It's not me shirking my responsibility of a parent of a teen. It's me being open minded enough to realize that I may need some help. I think there will be a lot of false positives/unnecessary investigations, yet if it prevents innocent death or suicide, or bullying, I am not completely against it. If my teen posts something disturbing and I missed it, I would be upset if an agency told me about it, instead of finding out about it myself or him telling me. However, I would be more upset if there was an alarming post and nobody reported it and someone got hurt. Call me paranoid but I also think that there is a lot of monitoring already being done. It's a step in the right direction, yet probably won't work very well. Too many factors to consider and emotion is hard to keep in or out of context. Words like "slut" "nigger" and too many others are thrown around like terms of endearment to one person and highly offensive to another. Who decides if it's friendship/brotherhood/kidding around or sexual harassment or racial harassment? I do have a problem with the school system telling me my child's body mass index and where he falls on the obesity scale but social monitoring? I think I can live with that.
