US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
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Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#2I would be curious to know whether Facebook, Twitter and Instagram knew Geofeedia was selling the data to the police and in general how much they regulate third parties that access their data.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#3I'm certain in the future that companies that sell third-party data to the government for this type of thing will get limited by large social networks due less to the reputational risk but more to the fear that the knowledge people are being watched will cause them to change or even limit their behavior on the platform. To wit, it behooves Facebook to ensure that the majority of two individuals' social media interactions are captured via platforms they control. Any threat to that is a direct threat to their profit center, ads.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#4in any case, it's probably best to assume police and other government agencies can access your social network data.
the ACLU may well win a million court cases, but the data is out there.
i don't see an effective way to stop police, as individuals, or as small independently organized groups, from accessing this sort of data, whether legally or illegally. someone will find a way to get that information to the police if the police want it.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#5It seems reasonable at time when "protesting" means shutting down infrastructure.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#6It seems reasonable at time when "protesting" means shutting down infrastructure.
> It seems reasonable at time when "protesting" means shutting down infrastructure.
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> It seems reasonable at time when "legislating" means shutting down infrastructure.
I'm curious why you complain about one and not the other? The latter is being used to take away people's access to things like voting, etc. by shutting down polling locations, changing times, etc. to reduce access to people who vote for the "wrong" party.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#7I've always found it curious why no one sets up a class-action lawsuit about the privacy and 3rd party selling of data.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#8I would be curious to know whether Facebook, Twitter and Instagram knew Geofeedia was selling the data to the police and in general how much they regulate third parties that access their data.
I would be willing to bet that at least someone at Facebook and Twitter knew that this data was being sold to them and knew they were likely to use it for this purpose.
Although this data is all "public", it is still not convenient or in-line with their terms of service to access it en-masse, and in real time, for these types of purposes without an explicit agreement with them.
Personally, I would think that Facebook and Twitter only cancelled the contract with Geofeedia because the ACLU called them out so publicly.
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#9I've always found it curious why no one sets up a class-action lawsuit about the privacy and 3rd party selling of data.
In the US, you are free to collect any data you can observe (assuming you don't interfere with others' rights). You are also free to trade what you collect with others.
On what basis could someone bring a class-action lawsuit about sales of data that was lawfully collected by a third-party?
Re: US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'
#10It seems reasonable at time when "protesting" means shutting down infrastructure.
There is a long history of blocking crucial infrastructure during civil unrest and protesting. Its used as a tactic because its effective. Nothing about it is new or specific to today's society.
How does that justify potentially infringing upon the protected rights of the protestors?