Texas school officials scanned the students’ social media on the Tuesday before the deadly shooting, but were still unable to decipher the teen gunman’s posts in the days leading up to the tragedy.
Earlier this month, now-deceased suspect Salvador Romas purchased two AR-style rifles as a birthday present and displayed them on social media, including gruesome messages sent hours before the murder.
The teen’s cameraman also saw her share a photo on her Instagram account where she hangs a rifle magazine on her lap.
The massacre, the deadliest case at a U.S. elementary school since the infamous 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, killed 19 students under the age of 11 and two adults at Uvalde Elementary School. Romas also reportedly shot his 66-year-old grandmother.
Now, Uvalde School officials say they are monitoring their students’ social media pages using an advanced artificial intelligence-based service called Social Sentinel, designed to detect potentially harmful messages in digital conversations.
The district said on Monday that it was using the platform “to monitor all Uvalde-related social media as a measure to identify potential threats that may occur against students and/or school district staff.”
Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old Waldal, shot dead 19 children and two adults in a shootout on Tuesday. Ramos shared photos of the weapon on social media a few days before the massacre.
This photo of two AR15-style rifles appeared on Rome’s Instagram three days before the Robbie Elementary School massacre. He then shared it in a tagged post hours before filming.
The teenager also shared an image on Instagram where he was holding a rifle magazine. His account was deleted after Governor Greg Abbott confirmed his name.
According to its creators, the service, powered by state-of-the-art language technology, scans and analyzes digital content to identify and highlight potential safety and security risks, as well as mental, social and emotional health issues.
The software scans selected digital content, in this case thousands of students’ social media accounts, and identifies the language that meets these criteria.
The powerful technology is designed to alert leaders if a member of the public shows signs of crisis, so they can intervene before an incident occurs.
The service analyzes the threatening images, as well as the associated text, before determining whether community leaders should consider this issue.
However, in this particular case, the technology was at fault: it failed to notice the objectively related positions of Roma and failed to notify district officials.
It’s still unclear why the technology failed. DailyMail.com reached out to Social Sentinel and Uvalde County staff to comment on the apparent lack of software on Wednesday morning, but did not immediately receive a response.
Source: Daily Mail
I am a technology author with 8 years of experience in journalism. My writing covers the latest technology advancements and trends, drawing on my expertise in news journalism and social media platforms. I have contributed to major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters.
