Police Surveilled Protests With Help From Twitter-Affiliated Startup Dataminr (theintercept.com) 68
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Intercept: Leveraging close ties to Twitter, controversial artificial intelligence startup Dataminr helped law enforcement digitally monitor the protests that swept the country following the killing of George Floyd, tipping off police to social media posts with the latest whereabouts and actions of demonstrators, according to documents reviewed by The Intercept and a source with direct knowledge of the matter. The monitoring seems at odds with claims from both Twitter and Dataminr that neither company would engage in or facilitate domestic surveillance following a string of 2016 controversies. Twitter, up until recently a longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA, provides the company with full access to a content stream known as the "firehose" -- a rare privilege among tech firms and one that lets Dataminr, recently valued at over $1.8 billion, scan every public tweet as soon as its author hits send. Both companies denied that the protest monitoring meets the definition of surveillance.
Dataminr's Black Lives Matter protest surveillance included persistent monitoring of social media to tip off police to the locations and activities of protests, developments within specific rallies, as well as instances of alleged "looting" and other property damage. According to the source with direct knowledge of Dataminr's protest monitoring, the company and Twitter's past claims that they don't condone or enable surveillance are "bullshit," relying on a deliberately narrowed definition. "It's true Dataminr doesn't specifically track protesters and activists individually, but at the request of the police they are tracking protests, and therefore protesters," this source explained. According to internal materials reviewed by The Intercept, Dataminr meticulously tracked not only ongoing protests, but kept comprehensive records of upcoming anti-police violence rallies in cities across the country to help its staff organize their monitoring efforts, including events' expected time and starting location within those cities. A protest schedule seen by The Intercept shows Dataminr was explicitly surveilling dozens of protests big and small, from Detroit and Brooklyn to York, Pennsylvania, and Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Company documents also show the firm instructed members of its staff to look for instances of "lethal force used against protesters by police or vice-versa," "property damage," "widespread arson or looting against government or commercial infrastructure," "new instances of officer-involved shootings or death with potential interpretation of racial bias," and occasions when a "violent protests spreads to new major American city." Staff were also specifically monitoring social media for posts about "Officers involved in Floyd's death" -- all of which would be forwarded to Dataminr's governmental customers through a service named "First Alert." [...] First Alert also scans other popular platforms like Snapchat and Facebook, the latter being particularly useful for protest organizers trying to rapidly mobilize their communities. On at least one occasion, according to MPD records, Dataminr was able to point police to a protest's Facebook event page before it had begun.
Dataminr's Black Lives Matter protest surveillance included persistent monitoring of social media to tip off police to the locations and activities of protests, developments within specific rallies, as well as instances of alleged "looting" and other property damage. According to the source with direct knowledge of Dataminr's protest monitoring, the company and Twitter's past claims that they don't condone or enable surveillance are "bullshit," relying on a deliberately narrowed definition. "It's true Dataminr doesn't specifically track protesters and activists individually, but at the request of the police they are tracking protests, and therefore protesters," this source explained. According to internal materials reviewed by The Intercept, Dataminr meticulously tracked not only ongoing protests, but kept comprehensive records of upcoming anti-police violence rallies in cities across the country to help its staff organize their monitoring efforts, including events' expected time and starting location within those cities. A protest schedule seen by The Intercept shows Dataminr was explicitly surveilling dozens of protests big and small, from Detroit and Brooklyn to York, Pennsylvania, and Hampton Roads, Virginia.
Company documents also show the firm instructed members of its staff to look for instances of "lethal force used against protesters by police or vice-versa," "property damage," "widespread arson or looting against government or commercial infrastructure," "new instances of officer-involved shootings or death with potential interpretation of racial bias," and occasions when a "violent protests spreads to new major American city." Staff were also specifically monitoring social media for posts about "Officers involved in Floyd's death" -- all of which would be forwarded to Dataminr's governmental customers through a service named "First Alert." [...] First Alert also scans other popular platforms like Snapchat and Facebook, the latter being particularly useful for protest organizers trying to rapidly mobilize their communities. On at least one occasion, according to MPD records, Dataminr was able to point police to a protest's Facebook event page before it had begun.
Loose lips sink ships (Score:3, Insightful)
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Not only are they exposing all their secrets, they are then exposed to all the targeted psychological manipulation that follows. As well as the constant screams to mass consume, to burn the planet to the core, to eat and eat more. Should those who provide advertising be held accountable for promoting environmental sound living, to keep pushing, consume more or die when consuming more is what is killing us.
How environmental unsound is data mining, to facilitate targeted psychological manipulation in order t
Sure but not very compelling (Score:2, Funny)
As well as the constant screams to mass consume, to burn the planet to the core
Yeah but a lot of us don't find Socialism or Communism all that compelling, so I really wouldn't worry about it.
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Y'know, for all that some people consider this "normal", I've never actually met anyone who buys things (including food) just because they've seen advertising for the thing. I mean, buying something because it's useful, yeah.
But just because it's being advertised a lot, no? Nope, never met that type of person.
Re:Loose lips sink ships (Score:5, Interesting)
Why people put their lives up on social media is beyond me.
I've come to the conclusion that their behavior is the result of a drug-like high people get when a single post gets lots of attention. From then on, they are chasing that high.
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We need a War on Social Media.
Re:Loose lips sink ships (Score:5, Funny)
I've come to the conclusion that their behavior is the result of a drug-like high people get when a single post gets lots of attention. From then on, they are chasing that high.
I'm still looking for the elusive +6 Insightful mod.
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There's a +7 Flamebait, but you won't find it here.
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I always want a (Score:5 Troll), but they seemed to have fixed the system where you can't do that anymore. *sigh*
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their behavior is the result of a drug-like high people get when a single post gets lots of attention. From then on, they are chasing that high.
That was the high that 80's graffiti artists claimed to be chasing. When a tag, throw-up or whole-car got the same attention as a social media post nowadays.
And maybe that's why the protesters are willing to risk "at least 10 years" [factba.se] prison sentences to graffiti statues: pictures of their work show up on social media and mainstream media.
Whereas people who obstruct a congressional investigation, lie under oath to Congress and tamper with a witness get their prison sentence commuted. [theguardian.com]
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Why people put their lives up on social media is beyond me. They're putting all their vulnerabilities out there for everyone to see, including the police.
I'd worry more about future employers than the police.
Well unless you're actually committing crimes, but if you are then I'm ok with it biting you in the ass.
Re:Loose lips sink ships (Score:5, Insightful)
By the way, "tip off police to the locations and activities of protests, developments within specific rallies, as well as instances of alleged "looting" and other property damage" is fine, it is their job to keep an eye on things and step in when they get out of hand, and if surveillance of social media helps them do that, so much the better. I don't have a problem with that, as long as there are airtight rules about what the police can and cannot do with the information, and strict enforcement of those rules, with effective oversight and real consequences for transgressions. What I do have a problem with, is that those safeguards to our privacy are rarely even discussed, let alone put in place. The word is: "you can trust us"
It does remind me of CNN (Score:5, Insightful)
The tone of the article suggests we're aupposed to be outraged, and perhaps we should be. If so, it might be useful to pin down exactly why. It says:
--
the firm instructed members of its staff to look for
instances of "lethal force used against protesters by police or vice-versa,"
"property damage,"
"widespread arson or looting against government or commercial infrastructure,"
"new instances of officer-involved shootings or death with potential interpretation of racial bias,"
and
occasions when a "violent protests spreads to new major American city."
--
That sounds like the same things CNN told their staff to look for. If there is a problem here, what precisely is the problem?
Note I'm not saying there is no problem. I'm trying to get away from the breathless time of the article to think about what, exactly, the issue is.
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I've adopted a habit of sorting journalism media into two buckets: those that tell me what I'm supposed to feel about events, and those that report on events.
Nice approach.
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Freakin' good! (Score:1, Informative)
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Social Change is about hearts and minds.
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Because there were plenty of cases of the media and others saying that the looting was justified, etc.
Ex:
https://time.com/5851111/prote... [time.com]
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/... [vox.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/he... [theatlantic.com]
As time has gone on since most of it, it's no surprise to see further diminishing of it.
Re:Alleged "looting" (Score:4, Insightful)
Jen Rubio, co-founder of the luggage brand Away, tweeted, “I urge you to redirect your empathy from Macy’s to the Black community. If you’re uneasy seeing a store being looted, imagine how it feels for Black Americans to see their community being looted daily through systemic racism. I say this as someone whose store was looted.”
The inmates are not only running the asylum, they are expanding it until everyone's in it.
Re:Alleged "looting" (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice...
Jen Rubio, co-founder of the luggage brand Away, tweeted, “I urge you to redirect your empathy from Macy’s to the Black community. If you’re uneasy seeing a store being looted, imagine how it feels for Black Americans to see their community being looted daily through systemic racism. I say this as someone whose store was looted.”
The inmates are not only running the asylum, they are expanding it until everyone's in it.
The problem with making theft and riot okay is that it removes social stability. Even if you remove Law Enforcement and government in general something will fill the space. There is never a good reason to loot. These justifications are just that, a way to absolve a group from responsibility for continued lawlessness.
There is nothing wrong with a peaceful protest, just as there is nothing wrong with monitoring possible looters. But more than a zero number of stores have been looted. it's not alleged. Just like more than a zero number of protests have not been peaceful.
Additionally, with a group whose intended purpose is to scare and indeterminate to make people "uncomfortable" there is no such thing as a peaceful protest as those activities are in fact not peaceful and imply immediate violence. In some of these cases the implied violence becomes real and random with frightening rapidity.
I do not support police brutality. Which is a whole country problem. While some groups have it worse, everyone has it bad.
I do not support discrimination of any kind. the fix to inequity is not to create more inequity, it is to fix the cultural problems that create it in the first place.
And why - do we keep defending people who are in the midst of a criminal act? There must be thousands of better candidates for these positions of Martyrdom.
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Jen Rubio probably isn't selling luggage at Macys on consignment. Every piece of stolen or destroyed luggage represents a 'sale' to them. It doesn't matter who and how their product is consumed, they reap a profit.
Their factory is tucked away on a backstreet and remains undamaged. It's the regular folks who work at and shop in the stores who suffer when the hooligans pillage, burn, and loot.
Not Sure How This is Wrong (Score:2)
You post something publicly and somehow expect it to be a secret? Wow are some people just dumb...
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That's what it'll do to you. They tell you you've got privacy. You're in control. Only your friends will see. You develop a feeling almost like you're writing in your own physical journal... remember LiveJournal? That was one of the first, before MySpace. (Interestingly, it seems like it's still around, and the servers were moved to Russia in December 2016.)
I started using the internet for social purposes in 1998 when I was 9 years old. It was IRC and bulletin boards back then, so a bit different from the t
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"I'm probably among the oldest wave of those who can be considered digital natives"
Not by a long shot. I was born in the very early 70's (I like to obfuscate a bit) and had my first PC when I was 6. I ran a FIDO net BBS back in the early days before the interweb thing came around (just another fad, I assure you...). And there are many more like me. We connected quite a bit back then, wrote code in BASIC and C and had a good time in our nerd world.
Hell, I was graduating high school by the time you were born.
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So wait. The cops are doing (Score:4, Insightful)
doing that what are payed to do? They have a good sized investigation force in addition to the troops on the streets. This is an fruitful avenue of investigation, so why wouldn't they follow it? The only way anyone would stop this is to use if for misinformation on a massive scale, but there's no way you'll get enough of the social media narcissists to go with that.
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The police should not be surveiling peaceful protesters. That's an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of association, and creates a chilling effect on a democratic right.
Effective oppression in a police state doesn't have to be at the end of a truncheon, that's why the Stazi collected vast amounts of data on everyone.
Re:So wait. The cops are doing (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole point of protesting is to draw attention to the issues you are protesting. The idea of civil disobedience is to loudly draw attention, be arrested in a mass event and force society to change.
Obviously the poilce should be watching, along with everybody else. Do you think, instead, that change should come from secret cell organizations forcing change through hidden actions?
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Ignoring the obvious issue that in this case the police are the thing being protested against, the police being there is not the same thing as using mass surveillance.
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It's interesting how this was modded troll. I'm guessing it's a Trump supporter who is pushing the "law and order" narrative.
What makes it interesting is how fragile that narrative is now. Law and order used to be the go-to for conservatives but it seems like recent events have really changed people's minds about it. You can see it reflected in polling on the matter.
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Is that the same MLK who said "a riot is the language of the unheard"?
This is ludicrous (Score:3, Insightful)
How is this 'surveillance'? These are public posts made with the intent of being read by the public at large. Are police supposed to close their eyes and cover their ears these days? Are police no longer allowed to read the newspaper?
There is absolutely zero expectation of privacy on any social media, Twitter included. If you write something online for the express purpose of other, potentially unknown, people reading it then you really can't call it surveillance when someone does.
Re: This is ludicrous (Score:2)
Indeed. At best you could call it "intelligence gathering", but that would be less clickbaity...
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Are they all public posts? They admit to the public posts, but I really doubt that's all they have the ability to monitor.
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There is absolutely zero expectation of privacy on any social media,
You have "zero expectation of privacy" in public either, but if a copper followed you round continuously taking notes you'd have every right to complain about being surveiled.
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Are police supposed to close their eyes: YES, what do you think it means to defund the police.
We are protesting since we don’t want police to interact when we shoot people. We want to set up our own police force, not beholden to any oppressive government structure or to votes or any form of oversight.
Look at CHOP, a perfectly peaceful community without cops, no rapes, no murder, no looting, no tagging, no businesses being forced to give free food, everyone had a patch of land they could live on and gr
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How is this 'surveillance'? These are public posts made with the intent of being read by the public at large. Are police supposed to close their eyes and cover their ears these days? Are police no longer allowed to read the newspaper? There is absolutely zero expectation of privacy on any social media, Twitter included. If you write something online for the express purpose of other, potentially unknown, people reading it then you really can't call it surveillance when someone does.
That's crazy talk!
Next you'll be telling us that it is okay to feel menaced by people who are literally trying to dress and act and use facial expressions and words and actions to be menacing! There no telling where this craziness could end!
Let's think about this (Score:2)
Protests turned into riots in many places and buildings were burned. And you say the police were watching this using technology and trying to learn and understand who was doing what?
Isn't that what police do? You wanted them to do something without watching and learning the details first?
You want peaceful protesters rounded up, or should police try to figure out who is firebombing and focus on them and leave the peaceful protesters alone?
Or just let people randomly firebomb anywhere with no action?
What
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Your attributing extremely Machiavellian motives to guys who for the most part only have average IQs. People like that don't think in terms of dark, manipulative multi-layered long-game strategy. Matter of fact, virtually no one does. They just want to fix broken shit and go home at the end of the day to have a beer.
Stop trying to make this more than it is. You look like a paranoid loon spouting ridiculous conspiracy theories.
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Twitter a tool for democracy? (Score:3)
Remember when Twitter & Facebook were selling themselves as tools for democracy? Remember all the journalists wetting themselves & declaring that Twitter & Facebook were responsible for so many democratic demonstrations & campaigns?
So still buys into the idea that corporate advertising platforms are all about pro-democracy & human rights? Who still thinks they won't sell out their users to whoever meets their price, including oppressive regimes?
"All governments lie." -- I.F. Stone... & it's been fairly clear for the past few decades that it also applies to corporations.
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Yeah. Spend the money with private security corporations instead.
Privacy does not mean what it used to (Score:2)
People keep saying privacy should be respected but with every example you come up with somehow privacy does not apply.
A generation ago if you drove around nobody knew what you were doing unless they spent a major effort to track you. Now all your data is being collected and all people have to do it is get access to it.
Things which were private in practice are now considered public. You communicate online, well those are ones and zeros which leave your house, how can they be private? If a camera captures thr
yeah (Score:1)
as well as instances of alleged "looting" and other property damage.
Love the scare quotes there. Looting, of course, is just some imaginary bugaboo of us crazy right wingers.
Goodthinking people call it "liberation of big screen TVs and high tops".
Re: yeah (Score:2)
Cancel them now! (Score:1)
They have no right to exist. Off with their heads!
Wouldn't it be great if... (Score:2)
Stop police brutality. (Score:1)