Latinitas Reports from SXSW 2017
Many people don’t think twice about what they share on social media. However, activists may be vulnerable to social media surveillance for organizing a protest, fueling a social media movement such as #BlackLivesMatter, or simply speaking up about what they believe in.
In the March 13 South By Southwest panel Activism In The Era of Social Media Surveillance, The Center For Media Justice Organizing Director Steven Renderos, ACLU of Northern California Tech and Civil Liberties Policy Attorney Matt Cagle, the Brennan Center Liberty and National Security Program Senior Counsel Rachel Levinson, and The Washington Post Silicon Valley Correspondent Elizabeth Dwoskin explored social media platforms as a tool for law enforcement to surveil protesters, particularly activists of color.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become a part of many people’s everyday life, including myself! We check up on friends and family and we turn to social media for entertainment and even news. What’s incredible is how social media can bring together individuals, groups, and organizations. It is without a doubt one of the most powerful ways to make connections and stay connected. As Renderos stated, social media is a way for people, including himself, to find out what’s happening outside the community where they live.
But what happens when we speak up about immigration, women’s rights, racism, and other issues? Renderos said that governments have been using social media to respond to activists and “frame” protesters by arresting them at protests.
One example of this is DeRay McKesson’s arrest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in July 2016. McKesson, a civil rights activist, educator, and avid social media user best known for his involvement in the Black Lives Matter movement, was protesting in response to the deaths of two black men at the hands of police officers. He was filming the protest via Periscope, an app that lets you livestream videos.
According to slideshow shared by the panel, analytics platforms are being purchased by jurisdictions to acquire data and real-time social media signals, and more than $5 million has been spent on social media monitoring by 156 jurisdictions since 2010; however, only 18 out of 156 jurisdictions have publicly available policies on use of social media by law enforcement for criminal investigations and intelligence gathering. Additionally, the panel cautioned there are many undercover accounts and one-on-one monitoring that many users are not aware of.
The panel went on to discuss the incredible amount of new technologies, such as Geofeedia, that make it easy and cheap to monitor people for a longer period of time. Cagle believes that minorities and black communities are the groups most surveillanced by police departments in an effort to control protesters and organizers. For example, the Baltimore Police Department has used cell phone stingrays — a cellular phone surveillance device — since 2007, a practice that the ACLU argues has been used to target minorities.
With the panel in full agreement, Cagle concluded the discussion by noting that activists, black communities, and minorities are the most vulnerable to social media and new technologies — something that companies must think about when taking the next steps to build their product. Further, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram must create new policies, become aware that minority groups and activists are being targeted, and enforce their privacy settings to protect their users.
About the Writer
Briseida Diaz is the Program and Administrative Assistant at Latinitas. She is a St. Edward’s Alumna with a degree in Communications and has worked at Latinitas for over a year.
