Forbes
How Bark Protects Kids From Online Bullying
By: Amit Chowdry
Bark is an Atlanta, Georgia-based startup that is aiming to curb cyberbullying by analyzing social media feeds and text messages for signs of depression, sexting and harmful content. Bark achieves this while maintaining the privacy and trust of children since it does not give parents full access to the messages sent and received.
Bark utilizes machine learning algorithms to detect the harmful content. By using machine learning, Bark can stay up-to-date with slang changes and the conversation context.
Bark CEO and founder Brian Bason previously worked as the Chief Technology Officer at Niche, a company that allows advertisers to collaborate with influencers across social media — which was acquired by Twitter. And before that, Bason was the co-founder of a mobile platform for bands that was acquired by RadioIO called CrowdStream.
“Despite having spent my entire career in social/mobile technology, I didn't have a clear sense of how best to keep my own kids safe online when they were old enough to have Internet-connected devices. I didn't like the idea of manually spot-checking my kids' devices, which is the default tactic used by most parents. In addition to being time-consuming and invasive, it's a highly ineffective approach to monitoring your child’s online activity. In the summer of 2015, I founded Bark to help keep my (and everyone else’s) children safer online,” said Bason in an interview.
Bason added that new technology has unintended consequences in most cases, thus creating a need to develop additional tools to make it safer. The invention of the automobile led to the unintended consequence of car crashes, leading to the development of seat belts, airbags and lane departure systems. With the development of ubiquity of Internet-connected devices amongst children, it has caused the “unintended consequences of cyberbullying, sexting, online predators and easy access to inappropriate content.”
According to Bark’s data, the number of issues that children face online is extremely common and the vast majority of the time parents are unaware of those issues. But it is just as important for children to have a level of privacy and feel like parents trust them. “We created Bark in an effort to find the balance between the need for parental awareness to severe issues and children's need for privacy,” explained Bason.
When I asked Bason what have been some of the noteworthy milestones, he said Bark recently passed the 500 million messages analyzed mark and the company raised $4 million in funding “from a fantastic group of investors.” The capital was used for building a “world-class team and to expand the scope of our partnerships with schools and corporations.” Over the last two years, Bark sent “hundreds of thousands of alerts” about really severe issues such as cyberbullying, potential suicide, online predators and school bomb threats. So far, 25 families have written to Bark to say that the app saved their child’s life by alerting them about suicidal messages.
“As we continue to grow and evolve as a company, we’re excited to expand our algorithmic support to additional languages, and we will continue to offer a wider variety of features and products that help families better navigate the complex digital world in which we live,” concluded Bason in the interview.
