Sources: Dataminr, an official Twitter partner, relayed tweets and other social media posts about BLM protesters directly to police, contrary to earlier claims
particularly Black, Indigenous, and people of color — to further surveillance and state violence. https://twitter.com/... Dell Cameron / @dellcam : A lot of surveillance firms survived the short burst of bans by Facebook and Twitter in late 2015 by simply not calling what they were doing “surveillance” anymore. Facebook/Twitter both required journalists to provide evidence of surveillance before they'd take any action. https://twitter.com/... Martin Sfp Bryant / @martinsfp : I'm this is particularly alarming because Dataminr is often spookily good at what it does. https://twitter.com/... Emma Roller / @emmaroller : Dataminr “collected, bundled, and captioned Twitter content relevant to the anti-police brutality protests and forwarded it directly to police” https://theintercept.com/... Cyrus Farivar / @cfarivar : FWIW, I use Dataminr. Here's what it looks like in my TweetDeck. Many here at NBC also use it, daily, constantly. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/... Ali Breland / @alibreland : a version of this happened in 2016 with geofeedia providing blm protestor surveillance in baltimore to police, which was similar to dataminr. twitter cut off its special api access, kneecaping the company. curious to see if it does the same here https://twitter.com/... Klaudia Amenbar / @kaludiasays : “Twitter, up until recently a longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA” UHHHHHHHHHHHH https://twitter.com/... Ralph Pullins / @rdpullins : Surveillance? Hardly. We're just recording your every movement and reporting it to law enforcement. Cc: @doctorow https://twitter.com/... Sam Biddle / @samfbiddle : https://twitter.com/... Sam Biddle / @samfbiddle : After I showed Dataminr an alert the company provided to Minneapolis PD including the exact location of protesters as an example, a company spokesperson told me that the police needed this information because it was about a “blocked intersection,” not a protest Sam Biddle / @samfbiddle : Twitter has an official policy prohibiting tweet-based surveillance, “period.” The company told me Dataminr “is in compliance with our developer policy.” Sam Biddle / @samfbiddle : both companies defend their actions by basically saying over and over again that this is not surveillance, it's “news gathering” https://theintercept.com/... https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
NEW: Dataminr, an official Twitter partner, helped police surveil Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder. Both companies deny that relaying tweets about the locations of peaceful protesters is “surveillance” https://theintercept.com/...
During a company meeting about their work with police in the midst of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, a Dataminr executive told employees that social media surveillance of protesters actually “helps magnify their voice”
Twitter gives Dataminr access to its “firehouse,” a non-public stream that allows it to monitor activities across Twitter. Dataminr then sends police what its gleaned about BLM protests. Both firms claim they don't help with police “surveilence.” https://theintercept.com/...
“Dataminr alert emails sent to the Minneapolis Police Department...show the company collected, bundled, and captioned Twitter content relevant to the anti-police brutality protests and forwarded it directly to police...” https://twitter.com/...
Excellent - it's past time for Twitter to come clean about its relationship with Dataminr and put its money where its mouth is when it comes to use of customer data for surveillance. https://twitter.com/...
This practice fuels surveillance and exposes people — particularly Black, Indigenous, and people of color — to further surveillance and state violence. https://twitter.com/...
A lot of surveillance firms survived the short burst of bans by Facebook and Twitter in late 2015 by simply not calling what they were doing “surveillance” anymore. Facebook/Twitter both required journalists to provide evidence of surveillance before they'd take any action. https…
Dataminr “collected, bundled, and captioned Twitter content relevant to the anti-police brutality protests and forwarded it directly to police” https://theintercept.com/...
FWIW, I use Dataminr. Here's what it looks like in my TweetDeck. Many here at NBC also use it, daily, constantly. https://twitter.com/... https://twitter.com/...
a version of this happened in 2016 with geofeedia providing blm protestor surveillance in baltimore to police, which was similar to dataminr. twitter cut off its special api access, kneecaping the company. curious to see if it does the same here https://twitter.com/...
After I showed Dataminr an alert the company provided to Minneapolis PD including the exact location of protesters as an example, a company spokesperson told me that the police needed this information because it was about a “blocked intersection,” not a protest
Twitter has an official policy prohibiting tweet-based surveillance, “period.” The company told me Dataminr “is in compliance with our developer policy.”
both companies defend their actions by basically saying over and over again that this is not surveillance, it's “news gathering” https://theintercept.com/... https://twitter.com/...