Startup of the week:
Who they are: Bark, an Atlanta-based startup that launched last year.
What they do: The app is designed to protect children and teens online by using artificial intelligence to analyze their social media, text and email messages. It alerts their parents if it finds evidence of cyberbullying, suicidal thoughts, sexting or other risky online behavior.
Why it’s cool: Young people’s online activity is increasingly impacting their mental health. Children and teens have committed suicide after being the victims of cyberbullying, while others have expressed suicidal thoughts online — a 14-year-old Florida girl even killed herself earlier this year while streaming on Facebook Live. In 2015, more than 15 percent of high school students reported being bullied online, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
Bark, which charges $9 a month or $99 for one year, works with programs including Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Pinterest and Kik, and sends an alert to the child’s parents via email or text message if it detects a potential issue.
[For more of this story, written by Mariska Kendall, go to http://www.mercurynews.com/201...een-suicides-so-far/]
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