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tdubz



Registered: 02/26/12
Posts: 5,586
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Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media 1
#23729884 - 10/11/16 11:06 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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https://motherboard.vice.com/read/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-block-geofeedia
On Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of California announced that, after the organization obtained revealing documents through public records access requests, Facebook and Instagram have cut off data access to a company that sells surveillance products for law enforcement. Twitter has also curbed the surveillance product’s access.
The product, called Geofeedia, is used by law enforcement to monitor social media on a large scale, and relies on social media sites’ APIs or other means of access. According to one internal email between a Geofeedia representative and police, the company claimed their product “covered Ferguson/Mike Brown nationally with great success,” in reference to to the fatal police shooting of a black teenager in Missouri in 2014, and subsequent protests.
“Our location-based intelligence platform enables hundreds of organizations around the world to predict, analyze, and act based on real-time social media signals,” the company’s website reads.
According to the ACLU, Instagram provided Geofeedia access to its API; Facebook gave access to a data feed called the Topic Feed API, which presents users with a ranked list of public posts; and Twitter provided Geofeedia, through an intermediary, with searchable access to its database of public tweets. Instagram and Facebook terminated Geofeedia’s access on September 19, and Twitter announced on Tuesday that it had suspended Geofeedia’s commercial access to Twitter data.
Geofeedia responded several hours after this article was published, with CEO Phil Harris providing an emailed statement saying the company’s tool was used by "law enforcement officials across the country” for "helping to ensure public safety.” Yet Harris said the company was simultaneously committed to "protecting civil rights and liberties,” without providing specifics. The full statement appears at the end of this article.
Social media monitoring software has become an attractive tool, and controversial issue, for law enforcement. ACLU’s concern, according to the group’s blog post, is that Geofeedia’s technology could be used to target neighborhoods of where people of colour live, or monitor activists.
In May, Denver police spent $30,000 on Geofeedia,The Daily Dot recently reported.
This isn’t the first time social media giants have taken issue with surveillance companies using its platforms. In May, Twitter cut off access to Dataminr, a service which attempts to identify unfolding events or political unrest.
But the ACLU says there is more to be done, particularly when it comes to the social media networks themselves.
“Beyond the agreements with Geofeedia, we are concerned about a lack of robust or properly enforced anti-surveillance policies. Neither Facebook nor Instagram has a public policy specifically prohibiting developers from exploiting user data for surveillance purposes,” the group writes. In response, the ACLU is calling for no data access to be given to developers of surveillance tools; for companies to publish transparent policies around their data being used for surveillance, and for greater oversight of developers.
Geofeedia is a software platform that aims to provide important, real-time publicly available information to a broad range of private and public sector clients, including corporations, media and journalism groups, marketing and advertising firms, educational companies, cities, schools, sports teams, and the aviation sector. In each of these areas, Geofeedia is committed to the principles of personal privacy, transparency and both the letter and the spirit of the law when it comes to individual rights.
Our platform provides some clients, including law enforcement officials across the country, with a critical tool in helping to ensure public safety while protecting civil rights and liberties. Notably, our software has also been used in response and recovery efforts – from the Boston Marathon to the effects of Hurricane Matthew that we saw this past weekend – to assist millions of people affected by both manmade and natural events.
Geofeedia has in place clear policies and guidelines to prevent the inappropriate use of our software; these include protections related to free speech and ensuring that end-users do not seek to inappropriately identify individuals based on race, ethnicity, religious, sexual orientation or political beliefs, among other factors.
That said, we understand, given the ever-changing nature of digital technology, that we must continue to work to build on these critical protections of civil rights. Geofeedia will continue to engage with key civil liberty stakeholders, including the ACLU, and the law enforcement community to make sure that we do everything in our power to support the security of the American people and the protection of personal freedoms.
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Ellis Dee
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Registered: 06/29/01
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: tdubz]
#23732985 - 10/13/16 01:10 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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And even the founder and primary owner of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, says his users are "dumbfucks" for trusting him with your data. I deactivated my account way back when that scandal came out. And for the record, I agree with Facebook's founder about his users, they're "dumbfucks" for trusting their info to him.
-------------------- "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
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tdubz



Registered: 02/26/12
Posts: 5,586
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: Ellis Dee] 1
#23732995 - 10/13/16 01:16 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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The Facebook internet news is quite disturbing, I don't know if you have heard about it, but basically Facebook will be offering free internet access to low income areas and places that do not have a connection in the United States. Here's the catch it get's to be Facebook's version of the internet in which they can manipulate various things as they please and or censor.
In the future I believe this is going to increase where part of the world is seeing one thing on one side of the internet while the other part is seeing something else even though it is the same site or what have you. Quite crafty. Pretty much like phishing on a grand scale but not to extort money to distort information.
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LobsterSauce


Registered: 11/09/08
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: tdubz] 1
#23733005 - 10/13/16 01:30 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Isn't distorting information what the media is already doing?
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Ellis Dee
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: LobsterSauce]
#23733022 - 10/13/16 01:41 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
LobsterSauce said: Isn't distorting information what the media is already doing?
Yes, but his sort of Chinese style net censorship will inhibit people's ability to obtain any accurate information at all.
-------------------- "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do."-King Solomon And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,
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tdubz



Registered: 02/26/12
Posts: 5,586
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: LobsterSauce]
#23733023 - 10/13/16 01:42 AM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Well yes, but I mean in a different way like you know for example one side of the internet seeing I hate you ect ect while the other sees I love you. There is a NSA program that outlines this for future cyber warfare. This would be a whole new extreme of media manipulation. In other words you are both connected to the same website from different parts of the world but they show different things depending who is controlling the pipeline. Much like China does with the great firewall yes, but imagine this you are Facebook and you are providing free internet to middle of shit no where Africa, then you can manipulate the information however you want.
Edited by tdubz (10/13/16 01:55 AM)
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ashfiken
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Re: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter Block Tool For Cops To Surveil You On Social Media [Re: tdubz] 1
#23734400 - 10/13/16 02:54 PM (7 years, 3 months ago) |
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Cyber weaponry if you will. Can make people destroy each other if you tell the right story. Purty scary stuff
Cheers
-------------------- hmm... "I'm naked and fearless... And my fear is naked." "life isn't worth living without the threat of death" "I got my plans in a ziploc bag, let's see how unproductive we can be" "nobody lives their lives fully except for bull fighters" My Trade List
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