Online safety company Bark Technologies today announced the addition of Microsoft Teams to the list of platforms it monitors at schools nationwide. Bark is the latest company to offer this level of protection on the popular Teams platform.
Currently, Bark monitors more than 30 of today’s most popular social media platforms and apps, as well as text messages, chats, emails, and Microsoft OneDrive files. Bark also monitors images, text within images, audio, and video that can be attached to Teams channels and chat messages as part of its suite of safety solutions. The addition of Teams monitoring in schools reinforces Bark’s commitment to protecting more than 5.6 million children across the U.S.
Throughout the pandemic, Teams has been one of the most heavily relied-upon platforms for educational institutions, growing exponentially as schools switched to distance and hybrid learning. Even as students return to the classroom this fall, more than 230,000 educational institutions rely on Teams to communicate and collaborate online.
Using highly sophisticated AI, Bark detects and alerts families of concerning behaviors in a variety of categories, including cyberbullying, depression, suicidal ideation, violence, and online predation. Throughout the challenging months of 2020 — the hardest year for families in recent memory — Bark analyzed more than 2 billion online activities from teens and tweens across the U.S., noting a significant uptick in behaviors including self-harm and suicidal ideation. Kids faced a pandemic, social unrest, and virtual learning, and through it all, they relied heavily on online communication to stay connected with family and friends.
“With more than 100 million students currently using Microsoft Teams, there has never been a greater need to ensure their safety when communicating and collaborating on school platforms,” said Brian Bason, CEO of Bark. “We are thrilled to add this extra layer of protection by adding Bark’s monitoring services to Teams.”
“We’re happy to see companies like Bark joining the Microsoft Teams ecosystem and adding value by integrating their safety solutions with Teams Graph APIs,” said
Yaron Hezroni, principal program manager for Teams Ecosystem at Microsoft. “The added safety measures Bark brings to Teams helps ensure that students are protected and in the best position to succeed.”
About Bark
Bark helps families manage and protect their children’s digital lives. The award-winning service monitors 30+ of the most popular apps and social media platforms for signs of issues like cyberbullying, suicidal ideation, online predators, threats of violence, and more. Bark’s web filtering and screen time management tools empower families to set healthy limits around the websites and apps their kids can access and when they can visit them. Visit www.bark.us to learn more.
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