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Police Departments Work to Expand Capability to “Shut Down” Social Media

77 points by detcader 13y ago

x0054 13y ago
The title is a bit misleading. They are working with Facebook on a program that would allow them to ban individual users form Facebook, not shutdown the entire FB, like the title makes it sound. Not saying they should have the right, as FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square, and 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do.
- burnOutShame 13y ago
  Iteration is useful to execute a single function multiple times. Such as blocking single people based on a list of people you believe to be subversive, or against your own interest.
- pdonis 13y ago
  FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market square, but is still private property. 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do The 1st amendment gives you the right of free speech, but it does not give you the right to commandeer someone else's resources for that purpose. FB does not belong to you, or to the public. If FB decides to block you from using their site, for whatever reason, then you just have to go exercise your right of free speech somewhere else.
  - emiliobumachar 13y ago
    I agree with what you said, but not with how it seems to answer your parent comment. If tax money pays for 2 minutes worth of labor by a police officer to log into watever tool and click a button to ban an account, then it's no longer a generic case of FB deciding to block an account "for watever reason". I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process. Disclosure: non-American with cursory knowledge of American law.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      If tax money pays for 2 minutes worth of labor by a police officer to log into watever tool and click a button to ban an account, then it's no longer a generic case of FB deciding to block an account "for watever reason". True; but it's still not a case of the account holder's free speech rights being infringed, because the account holder doesn't have a free speech right to use FB's resources in the first place. If the police were trying to keep him from posting to his own blog on a domain that he owned himself, that would be different. This kind of thing might be an instance of infringing Facebook's rights to manage their property how they want, if FB was being forced to give the police officer access; but that doesn't appear to be the case: FB appears to be cooperating voluntarily with law enforcement to provide this tool. I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process. I don't disagree, but the reason for requiring due process would not be to protect free speech rights for FB's users; it would be because US citizens decide, collectively, that we don't want to allow the police to have this kind of power without more oversight, even if a private company like Facebook provides the access voluntarily. I'm not sure what, if any, Constitutional provision that invokes, but I don't think it's the 1st Amendment.
      - declan 13y ago
        "It's still not a case of the New York Times' free speech rights being infringed, because the New York Times does not have a free speech right to use a third party's printing presses to publish newspapers. If the police were trying to keep the New York Times from publishing using its own printing presses, that would be different." I took the liberty of rephrasing the parent comment to target dead tree media. The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer are left as an exercise for the first year law student. That is not to say it's always a slam dunk case; there's a continuum between "FYI Facebook," "Please ban," and "Here's a formal order to ban."
        pdonis 13y ago
        the New York Times does not have a free speech right to use a third party's printing presses to publish newspapers Isn't this correct? Can't a third party refuse to let the NYT use its printers? The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer As I said in the post you responded to, AFAIK the government is not issuing an "order" to Facebook; Facebook is voluntarily allowing the police to do this. If FB was being "ordered" to do this, that would be different. But as I said in the post you responded to, I still don't think it would be a First Amendment issue; it would be a private property issue (the government trying to restrict how Facebook can make decisions about its property, namely who can use its services).
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market square, but is still private property. The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required to act as common carriers. The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family, and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights. Facebook, essentially, should belong to the public inasmuch as Facebook strives to become indispensable to the public.
    - gscott 13y ago
      The CEO of Facebook goes as far as saying he wants it to be a utility: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-utility-company/5152 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-utilit...
      - pdonis 13y ago
        Yes, back in 2007, and on the basis of exposing various API functions that FB has now repeatedly shown that it is willing to arbitrarily restrict or revoke when developers use them in ways FB doesn't like. They are within their rights to do that, but it's not the sort of behavior that's consistent with wanting to be a utility. But even if FB didn't do that, the argument about them being a utility doesn't hold water, because, as nknighthb pointed out upthread, FB could shut down tomorrow and people would simply find other means of social networking. The public utility is the Internet infrastructure itself; that is what would cause huge disruption if it were suddenly shut down or restricted.
    - pdonis 13y ago
      The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required to act as common carriers. See nknighthb's comment on this upthread. The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family You're kidding, right? Haven't you heard of email? What you mean is, the "walled garden" web sites are more convenient ways for lots of people to communicate with friends and family. Convenience is not enough to invoke free speech rights. and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights Huh? There are plenty of sites where you can start a blog for free. Web hosting is cheap. And even if you leave all that out, what do you think you're doing by commenting here?
- detcader 13y ago
  I didn't submit this link but rather a post at privacysos.org that talks about the Lipp post, which has a perhaps better title "Is Facebook going to let cops block you from posting about protests?"
- amerika_blog 13y ago
  > as FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square, and 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do. Legally, no. In spirit? I agree with you. Anywhere that users interact, make friends, and exercise creativity should be defended as something more than physical property. It's a community. How to write that into law, I don't know. :)
D9u 13y ago
Video does not exist Uh oh...
acd 13y ago
p2p social media will not be "shutdown"
- coldtea 13y ago
  Why? Magic unicorns will save it?
detcader 13y ago
I know that HN mods replace the title of posts sometimes, but now they're replacing the entire _links_ with other blog posts? Didn't know this. The post I submitted was from PrivacySOS.org [1] which admittedly is more of a wrapper (to put it programatically) for Lipp's post [1] http://privacysos.org/node/1217 http://privacysos.org/node/1217
cryptolect 13y ago
This is scarily close to what China does. In China, the government doesn't really care about people complaining about politicians and the government online. However, if there's even a hint of a protest, out come the censors and posts get deleted rapidly. They've gone so far as to ban Weibo accounts with influential amounts of followers. When I read that US law enforcement is working with Facebook to mitigate protests, it seems like they're playing catchup using tactics not dissimilar to China. This is incredibly concerning given the importance of protests in a Democracy.

77 points by detcader 13y ago

x0054 13y ago

The title is a bit misleading. They are working with Facebook on a program that would allow them to ban individual users form Facebook, not shutdown the entire FB, like the title makes it sound. Not saying they should have the right, as FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square, and 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do.

burnOutShame 13y ago
Iteration is useful to execute a single function multiple times. Such as blocking single people based on a list of people you believe to be subversive, or against your own interest.
pdonis 13y ago
FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market square, but is still private property. 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do The 1st amendment gives you the right of free speech, but it does not give you the right to commandeer someone else's resources for that purpose. FB does not belong to you, or to the public. If FB decides to block you from using their site, for whatever reason, then you just have to go exercise your right of free speech somewhere else.
- emiliobumachar 13y ago
  I agree with what you said, but not with how it seems to answer your parent comment. If tax money pays for 2 minutes worth of labor by a police officer to log into watever tool and click a button to ban an account, then it's no longer a generic case of FB deciding to block an account "for watever reason". I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process. Disclosure: non-American with cursory knowledge of American law.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    If tax money pays for 2 minutes worth of labor by a police officer to log into watever tool and click a button to ban an account, then it's no longer a generic case of FB deciding to block an account "for watever reason". True; but it's still not a case of the account holder's free speech rights being infringed, because the account holder doesn't have a free speech right to use FB's resources in the first place. If the police were trying to keep him from posting to his own blog on a domain that he owned himself, that would be different. This kind of thing might be an instance of infringing Facebook's rights to manage their property how they want, if FB was being forced to give the police officer access; but that doesn't appear to be the case: FB appears to be cooperating voluntarily with law enforcement to provide this tool. I'm not saying it should never happen, I'm saying it should be subject to due process. I don't disagree, but the reason for requiring due process would not be to protect free speech rights for FB's users; it would be because US citizens decide, collectively, that we don't want to allow the police to have this kind of power without more oversight, even if a private company like Facebook provides the access voluntarily. I'm not sure what, if any, Constitutional provision that invokes, but I don't think it's the 1st Amendment.
    - declan 13y ago
      "It's still not a case of the New York Times' free speech rights being infringed, because the New York Times does not have a free speech right to use a third party's printing presses to publish newspapers. If the police were trying to keep the New York Times from publishing using its own printing presses, that would be different." I took the liberty of rephrasing the parent comment to target dead tree media. The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer are left as an exercise for the first year law student. That is not to say it's always a slam dunk case; there's a continuum between "FYI Facebook," "Please ban," and "Here's a formal order to ban."
      - pdonis 13y ago
        the New York Times does not have a free speech right to use a third party's printing presses to publish newspapers Isn't this correct? Can't a third party refuse to let the NYT use its printers? The First Amendment problems with such an order to a third-party printer As I said in the post you responded to, AFAIK the government is not issuing an "order" to Facebook; Facebook is voluntarily allowing the police to do this. If FB was being "ordered" to do this, that would be different. But as I said in the post you responded to, I still don't think it would be a First Amendment issue; it would be a private property issue (the government trying to restrict how Facebook can make decisions about its property, namely who can use its services).
- nitrogen 13y ago
  No, it isn't. The Internet as a whole might be, but FB isn't. It's the equivalent of a particular shop that happens to be contiguous to the market square, but is still private property. The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required to act as common carriers. The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family, and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights. Facebook, essentially, should belong to the public inasmuch as Facebook strives to become indispensable to the public.
  - gscott 13y ago
    The CEO of Facebook goes as far as saying he wants it to be a utility: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-utility-company/5152 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/facebook-the-social-web-utilit...
    - pdonis 13y ago
      Yes, back in 2007, and on the basis of exposing various API functions that FB has now repeatedly shown that it is willing to arbitrarily restrict or revoke when developers use them in ways FB doesn't like. They are within their rights to do that, but it's not the sort of behavior that's consistent with wanting to be a utility. But even if FB didn't do that, the argument about them being a utility doesn't hold water, because, as nknighthb pointed out upthread, FB could shut down tomorrow and people would simply find other means of social networking. The public utility is the Internet infrastructure itself; that is what would cause huge disruption if it were suddenly shut down or restricted.
  - pdonis 13y ago
    The telephone network was also largely private property, but its use was deemed important and ubiquitous enough that telephone companies were required to act as common carriers. See nknighthb's comment on this upthread. The modern "walled garden" web sites are becoming the only place where one can reliably communicate with all of their friends and family You're kidding, right? Haven't you heard of email? What you mean is, the "walled garden" web sites are more convenient ways for lots of people to communicate with friends and family. Convenience is not enough to invoke free speech rights. and thus the only opportunity one has to exercise their free speech rights Huh? There are plenty of sites where you can start a blog for free. Web hosting is cheap. And even if you leave all that out, what do you think you're doing by commenting here?
detcader 13y ago
I didn't submit this link but rather a post at privacysos.org that talks about the Lipp post, which has a perhaps better title "Is Facebook going to let cops block you from posting about protests?"
amerika_blog 13y ago
> as FB is the 21st century equivalent of the market square, and 1st amendment should prohibit what they are trying to do. Legally, no. In spirit? I agree with you. Anywhere that users interact, make friends, and exercise creativity should be defended as something more than physical property. It's a community. How to write that into law, I don't know. :)

D9u 13y ago

Video does not exist Uh oh...

acd 13y ago

p2p social media will not be "shutdown"

coldtea 13y ago
Why? Magic unicorns will save it?

detcader 13y ago

I know that HN mods replace the title of posts sometimes, but now they're replacing the entire _links_ with other blog posts? Didn't know this. The post I submitted was from PrivacySOS.org [1] which admittedly is more of a wrapper (to put it programatically) for Lipp's post [1] http://privacysos.org/node/1217 http://privacysos.org/node/1217

cryptolect 13y ago

This is scarily close to what China does. In China, the government doesn't really care about people complaining about politicians and the government online. However, if there's even a hint of a protest, out come the censors and posts get deleted rapidly. They've gone so far as to ban Weibo accounts with influential amounts of followers. When I read that US law enforcement is working with Facebook to mitigate protests, it seems like they're playing catchup using tactics not dissimilar to China. This is incredibly concerning given the importance of protests in a Democracy.