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Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Provided Data for Surveilling Activists of Color

36 points by acjohnson55 10y ago

tocotun1 10y ago
Of colour? What colour? Blue?
- jodrellblank 10y ago
  By blue, you mean black people? It turns out blue may not be the best neutral solution, as blue stood for black characters like Skeeter in the TV show Doug. - http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/5/10/racemoji http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/5/10/racemoji
  - tocotun1 10y ago
    On an unrelated note, I've never understood why there's one colour for white people and four for black people--I'm between the whitest one and the second. I feel lost.
gr3yh47 10y ago
pretty clickbaity title... sounds more like they provided data for surveillance in general and the color piece of the title comes from this assertion: >Social media monitoring is spreading fast and is a powerful example of surveillance technology that can disproportionately impact communities of color.
- briholt 10y ago
  Discovering unethical behavior affecting everyone doesn't concern their audience, they have to throw in some dog whistle words to suggest the in-group is under threat.
dsjoerg 10y ago
ACLU says: "The government should not have preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." However here governmental entities did not have preferred access! They purchased the preferred access that Geofeedia would happily sell to anyone. If I understand ACLU's position correctly, it would be more fully stated as "The government should not be allowed to buy preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." or perhaps instead or also "Nobody should be allowed to sell preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." Which is fine as far as wishes go, but on what principles is this "should" grounded? What kind of freedom from government (mass) surveillance should we expect for actions that are conducted in public (physically public or electronically public)? I am sympathetic to the ACLU's goals here and am hoping to find better grounding for them, intellectually, politically, and practically.
- formula1 10y ago
  Some additional questions - Is a company allowed to sell what an individual willingly provides if the individual agrees to those terms? - Should an individual who provided personal information expect the company to keep it private by default or expect capitalism by default? - should a company legally be disallowed to promise/advertise security? - Is the government allowed to act similarly as any other private company in regards to accessing information?
  - x1798DE 10y ago
    > - Is the government allowed to act similarly as any other private company in regards to accessing information? I'm pretty sure most people would say no to this question (at least, after you gave them some examples). The government is bound by the constitution in ways that private companies are not, for good reason. I'm pretty sure that's the point that the grandparent post was trying to make - that the ACLU should make clear that they are advocating that this is a situation wherein the government doesn't have preferred access, but they should have restricted access.
    - formula1 10y ago
quxbar 10y ago
Yeah this is a misleading title - no part of the data was targeting people based on their demographics, unlike the hordes of ad trackers that are invading our private lives. They were selling a tool. Was the plan to target PoC with that tool? Possibly, but call for these companies to shut down their surveillance seems laughable when there's far more information being given to advertisers. Having worked with people in both adtech and surveillance platforms, the statement just doesn't hold water.
- protomyth 10y ago
  If you run a non-profit, you tend to be a little dramatic with your titles because that emotion leads to fund raising and influencing legislatures. I think the line from "Return of the Jedi" about it being true from a certain point of view. It is quite a bit harder in this day with news organizations now using the same tactics to get clicks. Plus, frankly, most people won't read about the issue or read the article for anything other than the headline put on it, so it generates outrage and postings which leads to funding and legislative action. Not something I like, but its how they work.
- dmix 10y ago
  While I agree with the majority of your comment, I must note that there's a key difference between ad tech and surveillance tech. The two key points being a) individual targeted data collection vs broad anonymized collection and b) the data could potentially be used for coercion/violence/oppression vs marketing and selling products. Just because the underlying tech functions the same doesn't mean they serve the same purpose. It's all context and that context matters. For example: You can use torrents to distribute legal files and "illegal" files, almost everything about the technology is the same but the end goal is different. The data that ad companies get is largely a side effect of modern technology, not nefarious behaviour. How that data is then used is the question. We can be critical of the data collection as well on both sides but just because the technology exists and is used elsewhere doesn't give moral justification for targeted intrusion software.
- cdubzzz 10y ago
  I believe you are correct that the title is misleading and generally agree re: the comparison to advertisers (although they are a much different group than law enforcement). But there is no way of knowing how the targeting was/is working (based on this article), so to say "no part of the data was targeting people based on their demographics" is also misleading.
niftich 10y ago
For those interested in the discussion, there were other threads on this in the past week: [1] "ACLU exposes Facebook, Twitter for selling surveillance company user data" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688548 [2] "US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12693732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12693732

36 points by acjohnson55 10y ago

tocotun1 10y ago

Of colour? What colour? Blue?

jodrellblank 10y ago
By blue, you mean black people? It turns out blue may not be the best neutral solution, as blue stood for black characters like Skeeter in the TV show Doug. - http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/5/10/racemoji http://www.elischiff.com/blog/2016/5/10/racemoji
- tocotun1 10y ago
  On an unrelated note, I've never understood why there's one colour for white people and four for black people--I'm between the whitest one and the second. I feel lost.

gr3yh47 10y ago

pretty clickbaity title... sounds more like they provided data for surveillance in general and the color piece of the title comes from this assertion: >Social media monitoring is spreading fast and is a powerful example of surveillance technology that can disproportionately impact communities of color.

briholt 10y ago
Discovering unethical behavior affecting everyone doesn't concern their audience, they have to throw in some dog whistle words to suggest the in-group is under threat.

dsjoerg 10y ago

ACLU says: "The government should not have preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." However here governmental entities did not have preferred access! They purchased the preferred access that Geofeedia would happily sell to anyone. If I understand ACLU's position correctly, it would be more fully stated as "The government should not be allowed to buy preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." or perhaps instead or also "Nobody should be allowed to sell preferred access to social media speech for surveillance purposes." Which is fine as far as wishes go, but on what principles is this "should" grounded? What kind of freedom from government (mass) surveillance should we expect for actions that are conducted in public (physically public or electronically public)? I am sympathetic to the ACLU's goals here and am hoping to find better grounding for them, intellectually, politically, and practically.

formula1 10y ago
Some additional questions - Is a company allowed to sell what an individual willingly provides if the individual agrees to those terms? - Should an individual who provided personal information expect the company to keep it private by default or expect capitalism by default? - should a company legally be disallowed to promise/advertise security? - Is the government allowed to act similarly as any other private company in regards to accessing information?
- x1798DE 10y ago
  > - Is the government allowed to act similarly as any other private company in regards to accessing information? I'm pretty sure most people would say no to this question (at least, after you gave them some examples). The government is bound by the constitution in ways that private companies are not, for good reason. I'm pretty sure that's the point that the grandparent post was trying to make - that the ACLU should make clear that they are advocating that this is a situation wherein the government doesn't have preferred access, but they should have restricted access.
  - formula1 10y ago

quxbar 10y ago

Yeah this is a misleading title - no part of the data was targeting people based on their demographics, unlike the hordes of ad trackers that are invading our private lives. They were selling a tool. Was the plan to target PoC with that tool? Possibly, but call for these companies to shut down their surveillance seems laughable when there's far more information being given to advertisers. Having worked with people in both adtech and surveillance platforms, the statement just doesn't hold water.

protomyth 10y ago
If you run a non-profit, you tend to be a little dramatic with your titles because that emotion leads to fund raising and influencing legislatures. I think the line from "Return of the Jedi" about it being true from a certain point of view. It is quite a bit harder in this day with news organizations now using the same tactics to get clicks. Plus, frankly, most people won't read about the issue or read the article for anything other than the headline put on it, so it generates outrage and postings which leads to funding and legislative action. Not something I like, but its how they work.
dmix 10y ago
While I agree with the majority of your comment, I must note that there's a key difference between ad tech and surveillance tech. The two key points being a) individual targeted data collection vs broad anonymized collection and b) the data could potentially be used for coercion/violence/oppression vs marketing and selling products. Just because the underlying tech functions the same doesn't mean they serve the same purpose. It's all context and that context matters. For example: You can use torrents to distribute legal files and "illegal" files, almost everything about the technology is the same but the end goal is different. The data that ad companies get is largely a side effect of modern technology, not nefarious behaviour. How that data is then used is the question. We can be critical of the data collection as well on both sides but just because the technology exists and is used elsewhere doesn't give moral justification for targeted intrusion software.
cdubzzz 10y ago
I believe you are correct that the title is misleading and generally agree re: the comparison to advertisers (although they are a much different group than law enforcement). But there is no way of knowing how the targeting was/is working (based on this article), so to say "no part of the data was targeting people based on their demographics" is also misleading.

niftich 10y ago

For those interested in the discussion, there were other threads on this in the past week: [1] "ACLU exposes Facebook, Twitter for selling surveillance company user data" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688548 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12688548 [2] "US startup Geofeedia 'allowed police to track protesters'" -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12693732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12693732