Social Media a Double-edged Sword for Government Officials
By Jack B. Winn
Police officers and detectives are using Twitter and Facebook to solve crimes, yet social media can be as much a curse as a blessing.
In preparation for the six-week long 2011 Rugby World Cup, New Zealand officers scrolled through YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other sites, searching for signs of intended criminal activity. Information was plotted on an interactive map on officers' computer screens, as the cops searched for 'Folks who want to take out your mum,' as officer Neal Macrae described the potential suspects in an interview.
The monitoring system the officers used included a mashup of geo-located tweets and streams of content from other social sites, including YouTube, which was found to have the least accurate information.
In total, officers trolled through 20 million tweets, but it was like looking for a digital nail in a stack of data.
"You need to start with a target," Macrae said. "With 20 million tweets, it's pretty hard to scroll through."
In one case, New Zealand police contacted the U.S. Ambassador when the foreign service officer tweeted his location during a match on September 11th.
"It was a bit of a security risk that he was doing that,” Macrae said. “His security detail was a bit apprehensive when we alerted them."
Other social media follies have occurred by police departments themselves. One police officer recently tweeted his desire to kill members of the hacker group Anonymous.
"Get those hacking [expletive]. I'm a cop in the bay area CA. I would go at them with both guns!" Mike Rood @Fan1UFC.
The tweet was sent in response to an attack by hackers on the Ultimate Fighting Championship website, which promotes mixed martial arts fights and has been working hard to protect its videos from being bootlegged.
Anonymous noticed the tweet and within a few days had flooded the local police department with complaints. Shortly thereafter, the department stopped accepting public posts on its Facebook page.
Other officers have been caught referring to themselves as a 'human waste disposal' and other offensive terms on social media.
"We're seeing an increase in concerns and issues in that area," Nancy Kolb, the press relations officer for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said in an interview with IDG News Service.
Under New Zealand law, public employees can be dismissed for the content of their posts (the relevant case law, Dickinson v. Chief Executive of Social Development, was handed down in 2010).
The law in the United States is more lenient, but no less clear: employees are allowed to access social media, with a few caveats. Public sector employees aren't allowed to endorse political candidates, for example, and employees are sometimes but not always given guidance on what is and isn't an appropriate post.
In a 2010 ruling, the National Labor Relations Board weighed in on whether employers can regulate--or even censor--employees' posts. In American Medical Response of Connecticut v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters 443 (2010), the NLRB held that the language barring employee pictures on social media was 'too broad,' and that employees' posts in that case were classified as protected speech under the first amendment.
The blurring lines between public and private life bring up an issue officers wrestle with everyday: privacy.
"Do we have a right to retain these tweets and look at them at our leisure?" Macrae asked during a Q and A at a recent symposium.
The fear is real enough for the United States military. Just last week, the US Army warned its soldiers about the dangers of 'geotagging'--the practice of tagging posts and photos with geospatial information, including latitude, longitude, and physical locations.
The new directive follows on the heels of a 2007 incident in which four U.S. helicopters in Iraq were targeted and shot down, in part because of pictures uploaded and geotagged on soldiers' Facebook feeds.
With Facebook rolling out the new timeline, many are worried the information made available puts other soldiers even more at risk.
"Honestly, it's pretty scary how much an acquaintance that becomes a Facebook 'friend' can find out about your routines and habits if you're always tagging location to your posts," Staff Sgt Dale Sweetnam of the Online and Social Media Division told the BBC.
www.ohmygov.com
By Jack B. Winn
Police officers and detectives are using Twitter and Facebook to solve crimes, yet social media can be as much a curse as a blessing.
In preparation for the six-week long 2011 Rugby World Cup, New Zealand officers scrolled through YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and other sites, searching for signs of intended criminal activity. Information was plotted on an interactive map on officers' computer screens, as the cops searched for 'Folks who want to take out your mum,' as officer Neal Macrae described the potential suspects in an interview.
The monitoring system the officers used included a mashup of geo-located tweets and streams of content from other social sites, including YouTube, which was found to have the least accurate information.
In total, officers trolled through 20 million tweets, but it was like looking for a digital nail in a stack of data.
"You need to start with a target," Macrae said. "With 20 million tweets, it's pretty hard to scroll through."
In one case, New Zealand police contacted the U.S. Ambassador when the foreign service officer tweeted his location during a match on September 11th.
"It was a bit of a security risk that he was doing that,” Macrae said. “His security detail was a bit apprehensive when we alerted them."
Other social media follies have occurred by police departments themselves. One police officer recently tweeted his desire to kill members of the hacker group Anonymous.
"Get those hacking [expletive]. I'm a cop in the bay area CA. I would go at them with both guns!" Mike Rood @Fan1UFC.
The tweet was sent in response to an attack by hackers on the Ultimate Fighting Championship website, which promotes mixed martial arts fights and has been working hard to protect its videos from being bootlegged.
Anonymous noticed the tweet and within a few days had flooded the local police department with complaints. Shortly thereafter, the department stopped accepting public posts on its Facebook page.
Other officers have been caught referring to themselves as a 'human waste disposal' and other offensive terms on social media.
"We're seeing an increase in concerns and issues in that area," Nancy Kolb, the press relations officer for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said in an interview with IDG News Service.
Under New Zealand law, public employees can be dismissed for the content of their posts (the relevant case law, Dickinson v. Chief Executive of Social Development, was handed down in 2010).
The law in the United States is more lenient, but no less clear: employees are allowed to access social media, with a few caveats. Public sector employees aren't allowed to endorse political candidates, for example, and employees are sometimes but not always given guidance on what is and isn't an appropriate post.
In a 2010 ruling, the National Labor Relations Board weighed in on whether employers can regulate--or even censor--employees' posts. In American Medical Response of Connecticut v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters 443 (2010), the NLRB held that the language barring employee pictures on social media was 'too broad,' and that employees' posts in that case were classified as protected speech under the first amendment.
The blurring lines between public and private life bring up an issue officers wrestle with everyday: privacy.
"Do we have a right to retain these tweets and look at them at our leisure?" Macrae asked during a Q and A at a recent symposium.
The fear is real enough for the United States military. Just last week, the US Army warned its soldiers about the dangers of 'geotagging'--the practice of tagging posts and photos with geospatial information, including latitude, longitude, and physical locations.
The new directive follows on the heels of a 2007 incident in which four U.S. helicopters in Iraq were targeted and shot down, in part because of pictures uploaded and geotagged on soldiers' Facebook feeds.
With Facebook rolling out the new timeline, many are worried the information made available puts other soldiers even more at risk.
"Honestly, it's pretty scary how much an acquaintance that becomes a Facebook 'friend' can find out about your routines and habits if you're always tagging location to your posts," Staff Sgt Dale Sweetnam of the Online and Social Media Division told the BBC.
www.ohmygov.com
