Endorsed by the Oberlin Police Department, backed by The City of Oberlin’s Equity Division, and managed by Cable Co-op.
With over 800 young minds in our schools, we need to educate, monitor, and protect our future community leaders and all from cyber threats. Hacking, identity theft, and phishing are cyber threats, but the biggest threat is the one to our young minds. Social media bullying, influencers who negatively impact the young generations, and all the misinformation on the internet is truly our biggest threat. But as an individual, a family, and a community, this is a threat we can do something about.
This new program works in conjunction with Bark, a national leader on cyber safety and awareness. Bark currently provides protection for over 6.7 million children and has helped detect over 5 million cyber safety issues including self-harm situations and online bullying. Bark enables parents/guardians to take control of what they deem to be important. Whether it is restricting access to certain content, online time limits, what “apps” may be downloaded or used, knowing their child’s location, or being notified about key phrases in messaging, such as, “go kill yourself loser”. Bark enables you to make the decisions you know are most important for those individuals you care about, and Bark helps guide you to properly resolve issues that may arise.
This is YOUR community working hard to provide Digital Equity and Inclusion to all those in YOUR community. Cable Co-op is the leader for Digital Equity and Inlusion in YOUR community.
What you should know:
Bark does not share the data from your household, which means Bark does not share or manipulate your data. Much like Cable Co-op Bark keeps your data private, it is your data not ours to share. Bark purges data on a regular basis to keep the amount of data low on its servers to help prevent your data from bing compromised from outside sources. Bark has some of the best practices in place to protect your data.
What
Is Bark?
Bark
is a software tool that uses advanced artificial intelligence algorithms to
monitor and analyze the digital activity of children and teenagers. It is
designed to help parents and guardians keep their children safe from online
predators and cyberbullying. Once installed, the app can be used to manage and
monitor their children’s Apple iOS and Google Android devices.
Bark monitors a wide range of digital platforms, including social media, text messaging, and email, and it can alert parents and guardians to potential issues before they become serious problems.
How Does Bark Work?
Bark uses advanced machine learning
algorithms to analyze the content of digital messages and identify potential
threats. The software can analyze text, images, and videos and recognize
patterns that may indicate cyberbullying, threats of violence, or other
dangerous behaviors.
When Bark detects a potential issue, it
sends an alert to the child’s parent or guardian and a summary of the content
that triggered the alert. The software can also provide guidance on how to
handle the situation and suggest resources for further support.
Given the massive popularity of
smartphones and tablets, the cold-turkey approach of banning children from
using digital devices is generally unsuccessful. Resentment is often a
consequence — not to mention that many children will use their ingenuity to get
their hands on a digital device.
The genius of Bark’s approach is that it
allows children to continue to use their digital devices — particularly
smartphones. Parental monitoring of a smartphone encourages children to act
responsibly, earn trust, and alert parents to potential cyberbullying-related
problems before tragedy strikes.
