TEACHERS have demanded taxpayer-funded Facebook "cops" be employed to help schools confront dangerous behaviour.
Specialist State Government workers would trawl through social media networks for "spot fires" linked to schools or their students, under a new plan put forward by the Queensland Teachers' Union.
The call for a school Facebook watchdog is set to ignite debate over monitoring of the private use of students' social media accounts.
It comes after a spate of high-profile cyber bullying cases and a Facebook link to the shocking attack on two alpacas at Caboolture High, north of Brisbane, last weekend.
The animals, part of the school's agricultural program, were brutally beaten to death in broad daylight by two unidentified men.
A Facebook page, titled "5000 likes and I'll steal an Alpaca from Caboolture High" was created by an ex-student and at least one other person 17 days before the incident.
Police last week would not rule out a link to the October 13 attack. QTU president Kevin Bates said better monitoring of social media networks could prevent dangerous behaviour spilling into classrooms.
"It would be something that would be monitored centrally ... and daily reports provided that could highlight potential issues that need to be addressed," Mr Bates said. "The sad truth is it is going to have to happen."
He said the role must be handled centrally as already-stretched schools did not have the expertise or staff to monitor social networks themselves. Queensland public school students are blocked from social media sites during school hours, but Education Queensland plays a limited role in monitoring private usage of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. One department worker has been hired to directly liaise with Facebook so potentially damaging pages can be quickly removed from the site.
But Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said it was the responsibility of parents to monitor their child's social media activities at home.
"Ultimately parents are responsible for the supervision of their children outside school hours and they have an important role to play in monitoring their children's behaviour on the Internet" Mr Langbroek said.
QUT senior lecturer in internet law Peter Black said schools could learn a lot about their students and community issues by watching social media. But he said it would be difficult for government employees to infiltrate students' Facebook accounts without creating fake profiles, which would be in breach of Facebook's terms of service and could also pose potential legal problems.