Tag: Social Media

Former GCHQ Head Calls for Greater Social Media Surveillance

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date May 2, 2012

There genuinely are bad people in the world, individuals and agents who largely exist to cause serious harm to citizens around the world in democratic states. These individuals cannot, however, be permitted to destabilize an entire population nor operate as reasons for totalizing mass surveillance. In the UK an incredibly senior and prominent security and intelligence expert, Sir David Omand, has nevertheless called for the following:

In a series of recommendations to the government, Sir David – the Cabinet Office’s former Security and Intelligence co-ordinator – said out-dated legislation needed to be reformed to ensure an ethical and legal framework for such intelligence gathering, which was clear and transparent.

The report recommends that social media should be divided into two categories, the first being open source information which public bodies could monitor to improve services while not identifying individuals without permission.

On the more contentious category of monitoring private social media, Sir David said it needed to be properly authorised – including the need for warrants when it was considered “genuine intrusion” – only used as a last resort when there was substantial cause and with regard to “collateral damage” to any innocent people who might have been in contact with a suspect.

It must repeatedly, and emphatically, be stated that ‘transparency’ in the intelligence world does not mean that citizens will actually know how collected data is used. Neither does codifying surveillance practices in law minimize citizens’ concerns around surveillance. No, it instead operates as a legal shield that protects those engaged in oft-times secretive actions that are inappropriately harmful to innocent citizens. Such changes in law must be incredibly carefully examined by the public and opposed or curtailed whenever there is even the slightest possibility of abuse or infringement of citizens’ reasonable normative expectations of privacy from state intrusion and surveillance.

Tags Facebook, GCHQ, Social Media, Surveillance, Twitter, United Kingdom

Writing

Facebook Censorship

Post author By Christopher Parsons
Post date March 12, 2012

I’ve tried to think of something comprehensive to say about the Facebook censorship rules for a few days now. I still don’t have something that really captures how absurd and offensive many of the items listed are. So, rather than give a holistic analysis of the document, here are a few thoughts:

Sex and Nudity

Point (1) indicates that permitting foreplay images between members of the same gender is somehow exception, given the statement “Foreplay allowed (Kissing, groping, etc.) even for same sex (man-man/woman-woman.” That this needs to be clearly stated is suggestive of a basic level of discomfort with same sex relationships.
Point (12) seems intensely hard to police, with enforcement being contingent on an employee’s own awareness of sexual fetishes. Moreover, given that the definition of a fetish is often derived from the use of inanimate objects as a stimulus to achieve sexual enjoyment/arousal, a high level of subjectivity will almost necessarily come into monitoring for the depiction of sexual fetishes “in any form.”

Hate Content

The note that “Humor overrules hate speech UNLESS slur words are present or the humor is not evident” is concerning because, in some circumstances, Facebook recognizes hate speech as somehow appropriate. I would suggest that the capacity for one person to detect humour is a particularly poor (and, arguably, inappropriate) evaluation metric.

Graphic Content

Point (1) seems immediately hard to govern, especially given that many Facebook members will support state-sanction violence towards targeted individuals. Example: would graphic comments supporting American efforts to torture Osama bin Laden be inappropriate? Is it OK to call for violence towards ‘bad’ people and not towards ‘good’ ones?
Point (6) prohibits the exhibition of what might be termed ‘grisly’ images that clearly show the penetration of skin. Blood or other aspects of a violent act are permitted, but the barrier of the skin is seen as special. This is suggestive of the ‘kinds’ of violence that Facebook recognizes as more or less appropriate for public viewing while imposing a particular cultural norm on a global network.
There is “No exception for news or awareness related content.” Thus, any news that is shared by Facebook members must conform to a specific norm of ‘appropriateness’ and failure to conform results in the removal of the content. Such an attitude speaks poorly of the company’s willingness to act as a site for individuals to communicate fully and openly: Facebook is declaring that their monetization depends, in part, on everyone being happy (or at least not shocked) and thus prohibits certain modes of expression.

Credible Threats

Point (3), that any threat to a head of state should be escalated, regardless of credibility, is problematic for three reasons. First: it will capture a vast number of users in a dragnet and it is unclear just little would place a user within this net (e.g. would “I fucking hate X and wish we’d just kill X” qualify?) Second: it stinks of an effort to pass responsibility to another party, so that if a particular message is ever linked to an attack then Facebook would be minimally responsible. Third: the number of potential threats can outpace professional security audit staff’s capability to ascertain real/false threats. Dragnet surveillance for this kind of behaviour is a poor means of identifying actual threats.

Those are some of my thoughts about this particular document. There are others that are still crystallizing and once/if I develop a full thought about the document I’ll be sure to post it.

Tags Censorship, Facebook, Social Media, Speech, Surveillance