General Social Media Information Archives

LinkedIn is the New Facebook: Search Tips

LinkedIn is slowly (over the last few years) turning from a business only platform to more of a sharing platform. While some things are still tabu, more and more users are sharing posts around personal matters than ever before. In fact, LinkedIn just launched its own version of Facebook stories. This will change how you search in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Stories

LinkedIn, has recently announced the launch of its Stories feature to allow users to share their photos and videos of up to 20 seconds on their accounts. The UAE was actually the first country in the Middle East to try the new feature out. LinkedIn explained that since the Pandemic, more users were using the platform and they noted an increase of 20% of private messaging on the platform. The engagement on posts has tripled. Currently LinkedIn has 4 million active users.

LinkedIn Loopholes for OSINT

Last month, I wrote a blog post, “LinkedIn Loopholes. How to Use Them in Your Search.” As I outlined in that post, LinkedIn got rid of their advanced search option making searching the platform much more difficult to do. It is worth another look however. Especially, due to the recent addition of LinkedIn stories. It remains to be seen just how this will work and what, if any, search options there will be here.

How Does This Help the Private Investigator?

One way is to take a look at the user’s URL. For example purposes, we will use my URL for my Linkedin profile. Anyone can find me by searching for Kathy Doering, however take a look at my URL. If you were investigating me, you may consider using this unique URL to search Google.

A solid LinkedIn profile can uncover all kinds of clues in terms of previous work experience. Some users allow their connections to be public vs. private. This is another plus for the investigator.

Don’t forget to take a look at their interests and who they follow. Groups they are involved with may be of interest as well. If more personalization is where LinkedIn is headed, it will be well worth it to devote some research time here.

4 Key Considerations For Social Media Intelligence

I recently had an insightful conversation with a Paralegal on using social media for deposition cases. He shared with me that the firm he works for conducts social media research on everyone. He shared that it was the only way they knew if their clients were being truthful with them. Too many times they learned of mistruths during the actual deposition. Can you imagine? Social media intelligence is becoming increasingly necessary for many cases.

That led me to think about what we do when we conduct social media/deep web research on a person of interest for a client. The who, what, where and why is becoming more and more important. Let’s beak it down even further.

The Who- What – Where – & Why –

Who: The who is the demographic information on your person of interest. This plays an important role in how we approach the search. Staying up to date on social media usage by demographics will help you narrow down your search a bit. Or, at the very least, give you a starting place.
What: What is the case about? Is it fraud, infidelity, workman’s comp, insurance fraud? This matters a lot. Depending on the case, there are less obvious sites to take a look at. For example, if an employee is stealing merchandise from their place of employment you may need to visit eBay or Craigs List.
Where: What area of the country does the person live? Someone living in a small town with limited resources may approach things differently that a person living in a huge city. The number of friends may be significantly larger in Facebook just because the city person may know more people.
Why: The why has to do with what you are specifically looking for. “We need to know if the suspect was active in sports after a certain date.” We are given this information by our clients many times. By knowing this information, we are able to use our time better by looking in social media specifically for this type of posting.

Stay Up To Date With Statistics As Part of Your Social Intelligence Process

Researchers are trained to keep up with changes in social media usage. It is part of an overall social media intelligence strategy. And that is not an easy task because people change their usage all the time. Ask any social media marketer. They are constantly looking at what is new in each platform on a weekly basis to be sure they are hitting the right audience with their marketing.

You see, it is not only about software. Software helps us to pinpoint areas of interest and certainly gives us additional, important clues. It helps to streamline the process. However, the human side is just as important if not more. Artificial intelligence and the understanding of algorithms are important but they have in no way replaced skilled researchers.

Social Media Regulation & Section 230

Will Social Media sites ever be regulated? Should there be a social media regulation policy? You can’t stop people from giving their opinions. That is called free speech. Social Media is the place where we all take part in free speech. What is up for debate is whether or not expressing your opinions on those sites falls under our First Amendment rights or not.

This week it comes front and center once again because of a Tweet from President Trump that Twitter added warnings to. Trump did not break any Twitter rules, however the social media site added its own opinion on the subject. It is no secret on how liberals feel about Trump’s Tweets. They despise them. I am certain that even some of Trump’s followers cringe at many of his Tweets. The problem here, in my opinion, is not the subject matter but the way in which Twitter did it. Should the owner of a social media platform be able to censor an opinion of anyone? And where does it stop?

What did Twitter Do?

Twitter said that the tweet about mail in voting fraud fell into a gray area of misleading content that the company deems as being important to call out. The platform rolled out its new fact-checking approach on May 11, around misinformation about COVID-19 which can be very dangerous. There is a lot of false statements made on all social media platforms and I think when it comes to public health this is very important. I am glad they have this safeguard in place.

However, did Twitter go too far this time? What does the law say? When this is talked about, Section 230 is always brought up. But is it out of date?

What is Section 230?

Section 230 was actually is part of federal legislation that was created 20 years ago. It has a total of 26 words. A recent Forbes article explains it this way:

They are the “26 words that created the Internet,” says Jeff Kossett, a cybersecurity law professor at the U.S Naval Academy and one of the foremost experts on Section 230.

Most fundamentally, Section 230 provides immunity to social media companies like Facebook and Twitter against being sued over the content on their site. This allows them to operate and flourish without needing to moderate content.

“Section 230 set the legal framework for the internet that we know today that relies heavily on user content rather than content that companies create. Without Section 230, companies would not be willing to take so many risks,” Kosset says.

Has social media gotten too big to regulate? Should it even be considered? What about censorship in the media? How does one ever really fact check these days when so many news outlets have their own agendas?

What do you think?

Secrets About Social Media Monitoring That Nobody Will Tell You.

By now most people have heard of social media monitoring in one form or another. Social media monitoring is something that companies do in order to maintain a good online presence and to monitor their online reputation. Restaurants, retail stores, doctors, lawyers and more are smart to hire a company to conduct this ongoing research on their behalf. It can reveal a lot about the company and its competitors.

In the investigation world, social media monitoring can take on an entirely new dimension. If you advertise that you conduct social media investigations, this added service could be a great new source of revenue for your company. A recent case study provides a good example of what we are talking about.

An investigator’s client (who is an attorney) was interested in locating an individual involved in a case she was working on. She wanted the individual’s social media watched for updates, as he was not able to be found using traditional surveillance methods. The investigator needed social media monitoring in order to watch for location clues in as close to real time as possible.

In the social media/ online world, things can change in a second. What is sometimes here today, will be gone tomorrow. That is where monitoring comes in. When an investigator uses social media monitoring, they are getting updates in real time. This type of online surveillance can be handy as it allows the investigator to get a clear picture and an update day to day on the whereabouts of his poi. This allows an investigator to act “in the moment” to better target resources to serve the person as needed, or to even find a missing person.

While conducting social media monitoring for this investigator we were able to locate the person. Within their instagram stories, we could see that he was on vacation and wanted to share his experiences. Looking at the background of an image can reveal a lot. We could see that he was visiting a very popular tourist destination. With this added information, it allowed the investigator to target more effectively. This may not be true in every case as some people don’t use social media at all. However, they are in the minority.

So next time you think about social media investigation ask yourself this question:

Would it be of value to my client to conduct social media monitoring for this case?
Some examples include:

Jury monitoring before, during and after a high profile case
Locating a missing person
Threat monitoring

The bottom line to all of this is to begin with the purpose & be certain it is well justified and that you are monitoring open source data only. When needed, this is an additional step in your investigation that may save time and money in the long run. People love to share their experiences online and this will never change. Learn ways to use it to your advantage.

The Dark Side of Facebook

Facebook is a place for online predators to stalk, engage and eventually lure an innocent kid to meet up in person. We have heard these stories too many times.
In this month’s newsletter, we want to cover some areas you may not be aware of, things that Facebook doesn’t really speak publicly about.

Facebook Groups Used To “Friend” Kids: When a person creates a Facebook Group, they have the choice of making it public or private. Facebook Groups can house all kinds of crime from fraud to drugs to sex trafficking. Kids who have a low self esteem or don’t have many friends are the ones who are the most targeted because of their vulnerability. They then get lured in by pimps offering them all kinds of fun and/or material things. Facebook has had numerous lawsuits filed against them over the years because of this. Newsweek published an article on one such case. A child of 12 years old was supposedly groomed online (in social media) for over a year. Facebook now has a very clear policy for this, with excellent resources in case anyone runs across a tip on a victim.

Photos Used For Extortion: A scammer can potentially sift through photos on Facebook, capture and download them and then conduct a reverse image scan to see if any married people are on any dating or swinger sites. They then can use it for blackmail.

Friend Requests: Romance scams are on the rise. Friend requests come in from a handsome man or pretty woman and many people will say yes to the request. Sometimes it may show that he or she is friends with some of the people they know, which makes it all seem more believable. Next comes the “online courting” stage and pretty soon they are asking for money. Catfishers set up elaborate fake profiles to make them appear to be real which hooks someone looking for love online.

Facebook Fraud: Targeting young women, a scammer once again took Facebook images of a victim and then created a post that said she was missing. Then 20 of her friends were duplicated and her “missing’ post was shared on all of their fake profile timelines. The scammers then blocked the real Facebook profiles so the victims couldn’t even see the fake profile of themselves.