Santa Monica High School Warns Parents about Vine App

From: "Santa Monica High School" <samohi-bc@smmusd.org>
Subject: Parent Info
Date: May 3, 2013 4:12:14 PM PDT

A message from SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL

Dear Samohi Parents,

In an effort to educate parents and be proactive, we’d like to alert you about a relatively new application called Vine.  It is available for Apple devices, like iPhones, iPod Touch, and iPads.

Here is a link to the developer’s website.

https://itunes.apple.com/app/vine-make-a-scene/id592447445  In short, Vine allows a user to record and piece together short video scenes in a six-second long looping video.

We’ve recently heard of students creating their own video content and sharing it with other students.  Given the list of possible themes from the developer’s website, we have some major concerns.

Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
Infrequent/Mild Simulated Gambling
Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity
Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence

If your child has access to this particular application, please consider having a conversation about watching, creating and potentially sharing videos.  We would hate to see students get themselves in trouble with the law or the school because of the content of the videos that they create.   Students don’t always understand that once something has been shared, there is no way to retrieve that.  There are some unscrupulous people out there who will use video content as a way to exert influence or humiliate.

We realize that this app can be used as a creative endeavor for many students and we honor that.  The majority of the videos that we’ve seen are harmless, however, we recognize that students are already making or watching videos of a sexual nature and/or videos that glorify violence or drug/alcohol use.

This e-mail has been sent to you by SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL. To maximize their communication with you, you may be receiving this e-mail in addition to a phone call with the same message. If you wish to discontinue this service, please inform SANTA MONICA HIGH SCHOOL IN PERSON, by US MAIL, by TELEPHONE at (310) 395-3204 or REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL.