FBI seeks to monitor Facebook, oversee mass social media data collection

[Guest]

There you go! It is starting... What was it again in another thread? He just throws words around to make people react? I've been waiting for this since his last speech! And here it is... Who would have thought that ZDNet would post about this when all the other Medias don't pip a word about it!

I'm so glad I'm not on Facebook, except a very OLD alt which has only been used for testing.

HOW is this not a violation of privacy and HOW can non.US users not be impacted by this?

 

 

Quote

 

FBI seeks to monitor Facebook, oversee mass social media data collection

Plans to track social media activity will potentially clash with existing privacy policies.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is planning to aggressively harvest information from Facebook and Twitter, a move which is likely to cause a clash between the agency and social media platforms. 

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the FBI has recently sought proposals from third-party vendors for technological solutions able to harvest publicly-available information in bulk from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets.

 

The law enforcement agency says the data collected will be used "to proactively identify and reactively monitor threats to the United States and its interests."

The request was made several weeks before the most recent shootings in the US involving cities in Texas and Ohio. 

US President Trump blamed social media as the providers of areas for "disturbed minds" to become radicalized and called for the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to work with vendors "to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike."

Law enforcement has requested the means to "obtain the full social media profile of persons-of-interest and their affiliation to any organization or groups," to keep track of users based on their neighborhood, and keyword searches, among other tool functions. 

Vendors have until August 27 to submit their proposals.

 

While the FBI believes that such tools can work in harmony with privacy safeguards and civil liberties, the mass collection of names, photos, and IDs -- when combined with information from other sources -- may do just the opposite. 

Back in July, for example, there was a public outcry after it was discovered that the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were plundering databases belonging to the DMV for surveillance and investigative purposes. 

The solicitation request is likely to raise the hackles of social media platforms. Facebook, in particular, has agreed to a $5 billion settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the past mishandling of user data and is currently working to comply with new privacy policies imposed by the agency including a "comprehensive data security program" and the prevention of the misuse of public data.

 

 

https://www.zdnet.com/article/fbi-seeks-to-monitor-facebook-oversee-mass-social-media-data-collection/

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by Guest
forgot to link sources :-S

[greenhorn]

In my humble opinion, it is of course a privacy violation and that "harmony" the FBI is talking about can only happen when no user notices the monitoring activities. Even though the FBI is claiming to harvest "publicly available" data, I assume the rest of the social media data (supposedly "private") will not be that difficult for them to get too.

One could be tempted to suggest the FBI opens a FBI (FaceBook Investigations) branch.

[Taf the Ghost]

1) Link the original quoted source.

2) This has been going on for years already, I guess the FBI just wants in on the act.

3) This is the FBI. Calling them to tell them someone is about to shoot up a school doesn't get anything done, so this will be about as effective.

4) If you haven't gotten the hint already, I highly recommend getting off Social Media in general.

[jagdtigger]

Another tinfoil-hat theory coming to life....

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

1) Link the original quoted source.

2) This has been going on for years already, I guess the FBI just wants in on the act.

3) This is the FBI. Calling them to tell them someone is about to shoot up a school doesn't get anything done, so this will be about as effective.

4) If you haven't gotten the hint already, I highly recommend getting off Social Media in general.

Sorry... forgot to copy paste the link... BUT I did name the source  

[Delicieuxz]

I think the government has these things planned for a long time and then just waits for opportunities (or creates them) to use as excuses to put them into practice. Putting Facebook under the official (as in, no longer secret) monitoring of the FBI could just be phase 3 or 4 in a series of implementation stages that have been planned since Facebook launched in 2004.

 

Edit: @Taf the Ghost appropriately brings up the US government's Total Information Awareness program - which wasn't in-practice ended but morphed into the basic operational philosophy of US intel agencies, and which I would say that all the tech giants are willing participants in.

 

 

Facebook already is an extension of the US state and NATO, with its content policies being directed by Atlantic Council, which is the terrorism-endorsing information warfare (AKA propaganda and disinformation) branch of NATO.

 

I also think that Facebook's parallel's to the US government's Lifelog project can't be ignored.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_LifeLog

Quote

LifeLog aimed to compile a massive electronic database of every activity and relationship a person engages in. This was to include credit card purchases, web sites visited, the content of telephone calls and e-mails sent and received, scans of faxes and postal mail sent and received, instant messages sent and received, books and magazines read, television and radio selections, physical location recorded via wearable GPS sensors, biomedical data captured through wearable sensors. The high level goal of this data logging was to identify "preferences, plans, goals, and other markers of intentionality".

 

Another of DARPA’s goals for LifeLog had a predictive function. It sought to “find meaningful patterns in the timeline, to infer the user’s routines, habits, and relationships with other people, organizations, places, and objects, and to exploit these patterns to ease its task" 

 

 

 

 

Google isn't too different:

 

Google’s true origin partly lies in CIA and NSA research grants for mass surveillance

 

How the CIA made Google

 

 

As I mentioned in this post, all data harvested by US tech giants is ending up in US government servers and in virtual profiles of every person to create a god-view over society.

 

[Taf the Ghost]

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Another tinfoil-hat theory coming to life....

The CIA is actually the ones that invented the concept of "tin foil hat" and "conspiracy theorist" as a way to frame anyone asking questions as being of questionable intelligence. The Narrative Framing worked wonders, if we're being honest. This is especially important as we now know for sure that Oswald worked with the CIA for a time.

 

It was never some big alien conspiracy coverup. It was always to coverup the stupid stuff that the Government did. (That's actually the first analysis view one should take when a Government is denying something while the "crazies" are swarming around it. )

[Taf the Ghost]

@Delicieuxz "Total Information Awareness". 

[Guest]

John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider".

George Orwell, "1984"

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

25 minutes ago, Cora_Lie said:

John Brunner, "The Shockwave Rider".

George Orwell, "1984"

Glenn Greenwald, "No Place to Hide"

 

Oh, hang on, that one is non-fiction and may be too scary.

[williamcll]

Gotta start obfuscating then.

[Trik'Stari]

10 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

1) Link the original quoted source.

2) This has been going on for years already, I guess the FBI just wants in on the act.

3) This is the FBI. Calling them to tell them someone is about to shoot up a school doesn't get anything done, so this will be about as effective.

4) If you haven't gotten the hint already, I highly recommend getting off Social Media in general.

I think this should be marked as the "answer" to this news.

 

Everyone needs to dump Twitter, Facebook, etc. Just stick to web forums like Yee Olden Days.

 

Dump them until the point that their investors sell off in a panic, and the companies close their doors. If I were a parent, I would be deleting my childrens facebook account or forbidding them from making one in the first place.

[Flying Sausages]

I no longer have Facebook so they can't monitor me.

[DildorTheDecent]

>develop tools to detect mass shooters

 

Finally someone is thinking of the children!

 

Helen Lovejoy will be so pleased.

[Arika]

So basically they will be getting everyone's information from Facebook... Meaning any bill passed to prevent data collection will inhibit the fbis data collection and likely be shot down... You know, the opposite of what they should be doing

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

1 hour ago, OlympicAssEater said:

I no longer have Facebook so they can't monitor me.

If only it were that easy.  Facebook is still collecting data on you even without an account.  That's what their famous "shadow profiles" are for. 

Every time you visit a page with a "like" button or one of those hidden Facebook pixels, Facebook knows and logs that.  Eventually they'll have enough info to identify you and when that happens their system searches their database for people who know you and gets your details from their contact lists.  

The best part is that you have no say in this.  You didn't consent to it and because you don't have an account you can't ask Facebook to delete that data either (assuming they actually delete data upon user request and not just hide it from the user).

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy

 

The very basic steps to stop Facebook tracking involve blocking all social media buttons in your browser and blocking all of Facebook's domains in your hosts file or router. 

If you ever browse with your phone, don't forget to fix that one as well ... which means rooting the phone because the hosts file is in the system partition.

[Flying Sausages]

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

If only it were that easy.  Facebook is still collecting data on you even without an account.  That's what their famous "shadow profiles" are for. 

Every time you visit a page with a "like" button or one of those hidden Facebook pixels, Facebook knows and logs that.  Eventually they'll have enough info to identify you and when that happens their system searches their database for people who know you and gets your details from their contact lists.   

The best part is that you have no say in this.  You didn't consent to it and because you don't have an account you can't ask Facebook to delete that data either (assuming they actually delete data upon user request and not just hide it from the user).

https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy

 

The very basic steps to stop Facebook tracking involve blocking all social media buttons in your browser and blocking all of Facebook's domains in your hosts file or router. 

If you ever browse with your phone, don't forget to fix that one as well ... which means rooting the phone because the hosts file is in the system partition.

You can disable all Facebook tracking craps through UBO.

[mr moose]

Given they are only collecting information that is already publicly available they don't need laws passed.    To be honest I am surprised they don't already do this, or that if they do, I am surprised it has only just become a news story.

[realpetertdm]

I personally think that social media and internet forums in general need to be monitored by government organizations in order to curb domestic terrorism and other security threats.

 

However this plan by the FBI seems a bit too authoritarian for me. If:

 

1) This was optional and companies could decide to share or not share data with government organizations

2) This had to be done with a warrant or reasonable doubt in accordance with the 4th Amendment

 

then I wouldn't have a problem. But making companies submit data for any person the government wants is just yelling to be abused.

[Dominik W]

10 hours ago, realpetertdm said:

I personally think that social media and internet forums in general need to be monitored by government organizations in order to curb domestic terrorism and other security threats.

 

However this plan by the FBI seems a bit too authoritarian for me. If:

 

1) This was optional and companies could decide to share or not share data with government organizations

2) This had to be done with a warrant or reasonable doubt in accordance with the 4th Amendment

 

then I wouldn't have a problem. But making companies submit data for any person the government wants is just yelling to be abused.

all that needs to be said. nothing extreme or any theories, just the reason makes sense, but it needs to follow the constitution.

[Guest]

My problem with that is... who is to decide what and when something is defined as "domestic terrorism"?

Where does is begin and where does it stop? What are the controls put in place which are going to monitor the work of those monitoring and intervening?