Pearson Is NOT “Spying” On Student Tweets, It’s Enlisting Public School Officials To Defend Its Intellectual Property
Bob Braun, an education blogger and former journalist, got ahold of a note from a school superintendent advising parents in the district that a student in NJ had tweeted outside of school hours about a PARCC test he had completed earlier when school was still in session.* (The exact contents of the tweet are unknown now.)
Pearson, a multinational corporation which monitors its brand on Twitter for reputation defense and intellectual property rights violations, saw the tweet and contacted the New Jersey Department of Education which then reached out to the superintendent of the school district where the child attends. Pearson labeled this a “Priority 1 alert” breach of the confidential nature of the test’s contents and the NJDOE instructed the superintendent to have the student remove his tweet and he complied.
The framing of this by Braun as “spying” has caused the hair of many education activists to catch on fire. HOWEVER.
Pearson is not “spying” on student tweets, it’s enlisting public school officials — the New Jersey Department of Education — to defend its intellectual property. The latter is worse and a bigger problem.
People need to realize that corporate brands monitor their Twitter mentions. This is a fact and not a new thing; this is how hashtags and searchable Twitter handles work, and this is how successful issue campaigns have been launched against corporate brands in the past. (In 2011, I wanted to force Procter & Gamble to divest monetary and other support for ALEC, which is the right-wing clearinghouse for state legislation like “stand your ground” aka “kill at will with your gun,” parent trigger, and other toxic legislation, etc. So some activists and I used their shareholder meeting hashtag and tweeted embarrassing news reports about P&G’s shameful corporate citizenship, costly lawsuits over metal hip joints, and so forth. Which of course they saw and any shareholders tuning in to the hashtag also saw. And not long after pressure from many much larger activist groups, including Pearson Is NOT Spying on Student Tweets; Instead Enlisting Public School Officials to Protect Its Tests:
People need to realize that corporate brands monitor their Twitter mentions. This is a fact and not a new thing; this is how hashtags and searchable Twitter handles work, and this is how successful issue campaigns have been launched against corporate brands in the past. (In 2011, I wanted to force Procter & Gamble to divest monetary and other support for ALEC, which is the right-wing clearinghouse for state legislation like “stand your ground” aka “kill at will with your gun,” parent trigger, and other toxic legislation, etc. So some activists and I used their shareholder meeting hashtag and tweeted embarrassing news reports about P&G’s shameful corporate citizenship, costly lawsuits over metal hip joints, and so forth. Which of course they saw and any shareholders tuning in to the hashtag also saw. And not long after pressure from many much larger activist groups, including Pearson Is NOT Spying on Student Tweets; Instead Enlisting Public School Officials to Protect Its Tests: