The difficulty of cyberbullying has gained vital consideration in recent times as a result of widespread use of the web and social media platforms particularly.
Cyberbullying is classically outlined as using digital communication to bully, harass, or intimidate one other individual. It will possibly have extreme penalties for the sufferer’s psychological well being and well-being — and is usually even deadly.
Fortuitously, software program instruments are actually out there to assist fight cyberbullying, and one of the standard is Bark.
What Is Bark?
Bark is a software program instrument that makes use of superior synthetic intelligence algorithms to observe and analyze the digital exercise of youngsters and youngsters. It’s designed to assist dad and mom and guardians hold their kids secure from on-line predators and cyberbullying. As soon as put in, the app can be utilized to handle and monitor their kids’s Apple iOS and Google Android units.
Bark screens a variety of digital platforms, together with social media, textual content messaging, and electronic mail, and it may well alert dad and mom and guardians to potential points earlier than they develop into critical issues.
How Does Bark Work?
Bark makes use of superior machine studying algorithms to investigate the content material of digital messages and establish potential threats. The software program can analyze textual content, photographs, and movies and acknowledge patterns that will point out cyberbullying, threats of violence, or different harmful behaviors.
When Bark detects a possible problem, it sends an alert to the kid’s guardian or guardian and a abstract of the content material that triggered the alert. The software program can even present steering on deal with the state of affairs and counsel sources for additional assist.
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Given the large recognition of smartphones and tablets, the cold-turkey strategy of banning kids from utilizing digital units is mostly unsuccessful. Resentment is commonly a consequence — to not point out that many kids will use their ingenuity to get their arms on a digital machine.
The genius of Bark’s strategy is that it permits kids to proceed to make use of their digital units — notably smartphones. Parental monitoring of a smartphone encourages kids to behave responsibly, earn belief, and alert dad and mom to potential cyberbullying-related issues earlier than tragedy strikes.
Bark Options
Bark has many options designed to assist dad and mom and guardians monitor their kids’s digital exercise and defend them from on-line risks. A few of the most notable options embody:
- Monitoring a number of digital platforms: Bark screens a variety of digital platforms, together with social media, textual content messaging, and electronic mail. This facet implies that dad and mom and guardians can regulate their little one’s exercise throughout a number of platforms with out having to log into every platform individually.
- Customizable alerts: Mother and father and guardians can customise the kinds of alerts they obtain from Bark based mostly on their little one’s age and the kinds of content material they need to monitor. For instance, they’ll set alerts for cyberbullying, sexting, or violent threats.
- Clever evaluation: Bark makes use of superior synthetic intelligence algorithms to investigate the content material of digital messages and establish potential points. The software program can acknowledge patterns and establish doubtlessly harmful conditions earlier than they escalate.
- Assist for a number of units: Bark might be put in on quite a few units, together with smartphones, tablets, and laptops, making it simple to observe a baby’s digital exercise throughout all their units.
- Straightforward to make use of: Bark is straightforward to arrange and use, with a easy interface that enables dad and mom and guardians to view their little one’s digital exercise and obtain alerts.
Bark Advantages
Bark affords a number of advantages for folks and guardians involved about their kids’s on-line security.
At first, Bark facilitates the early detection of potential points. Bark can establish potential points earlier than they develop into critical issues, permitting dad and mom and guardians to intervene early and forestall hurt.
Secondly, Bark offers a useful diploma of peace of thoughts to folks who want to regulate their kids inside and out of doors the house. This consolation manifests itself within the information that oldsters, caregivers, or guardians are taking steps to guard their kids from on-line risks.
As well as, Bark’s answer offers customizable alerts that permit dad and mom and guardians to personalize the kinds of alerts they obtain, to allow them to deal with the particular kinds of content material that concern them. This functionality is essential as particular person kids have completely different maturity ranges, and it permits dad and mom to personalize the type of content material that children get entry to. The consequence is the chance to construct a extra substantial diploma of belief between guardian and little one.
Since kids typically have entry to a number of related units, Bark might be put in on quite a few merchandise, so dad and mom and guardians can monitor their little one’s exercise throughout all their units. It’s additionally useful that Bark is straightforward to arrange and use, with a easy interface that enables dad and mom and guardians to observe their little one’s digital exercise and obtain alerts. In different phrases, even technology-challenged dad and mom can use Bark with no sharp studying curve.
Partnership With Calix
Final yr, Calix introduced a strategic partnership with Bark. Calix is without doubt one of the main world suppliers of cloud and software program platforms, techniques, and companies that broadband service suppliers (BSP) use to ship a unified entry community and the sensible residence of tomorrow.
The Bark partnership is telling because it underscores Calix’s mutual concern about cyberbullying, as it’s the typical type of harassment confronted by teenagers and tweens. Calix has well added Bark to its rising system of premium system choices in its Calix Income EDGE Suites that BSPs can supply to broadband subscribers.
By way of this partnership, Calix and Bark permit even the smallest BSPs, who typically don’t have the sources to implement capabilities like Bark by itself, to enlarge their worth proposition to the communities they function in. The result’s that BSPs are empowered to assist households defend kids at residence, college, and just about wherever on the earth.
In a current SmartTechCheck podcast, I had the chance to talk with Bark’s International CMO, Titania Jordan, and Megan Powell, Calix’s Director of Product Advertising and marketing, the place we mentioned the corporate’s partnership and dedication to sort out cyberbullying.
Closing Ideas
Cyberbullying is a critical problem that may have vital penalties for youngsters and youngsters. Fortuitously, software program instruments like Bark are actually out there to assist dad and mom and guardians tackle this downside proactively and robustly.
The rise of the smartphone and its recognition with kids has created unprecedented challenges for folks. Bark reviews that its answer has already coated 6.5 million kids, detected a staggering 1.1 million extreme self-harm conditions, and three million extreme bullying circumstances.
Calix has an extended and spectacular historical past with BSPs to make sure that kids’s on-line presence is safer. In actual fact, Calix was one of many first corporations to supply parental controls to BSPs in 2019 through its ExperienceIQ providing.
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The Calix/Bark/BSP dynamic’s enterprise implications additionally deserve point out. Calix’s DNA is characterised by its skill to permit BSPs to handle, deploy, market, and function a majority of these premium companies in a resource-friendly method. The Bark component amplifies Calix’s worth proposition with BSPs as a result of it accelerates time-to-market with wholly built-in turnkey options.
Cyberbullying could also be a Twenty first-century downside that will by no means go away totally. Nonetheless, Bark and its partnership with Calix is a decisive step in the correct course that may assist dramatically mitigate this downside.
Sadly, households are confronted with quite a few digital risks that threaten their kids on a 24/7 foundation. By combining forces, Calix and Bark have raised the bar — and expectation — on what accountable expertise corporations can and may do to guard our kids’s lives.