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The Hidden Meaning of Emojis

Those seemingly innocent emojis that we use daily…Did you know there is danger lurking behind them?

What can look harmless in a social media post or text message may have a different meaning to teens. The BBC Scotland recently aired a documentary on kids selling drugs online. An excerpt follows:

Teenagers are employing a code made up of ’emojis’ – small digital images normally used to convey emotions – to conceal the deals. One of the country’s largest drug gangs told a BBC documentary 75% of their takings now come through social media transactions, using ‘digital-savvy’ school pupils.

Film-maker Stacey Dooley confronted the young dealers, highlighting the ease with which illegal transactions can be arranged. One of them, 15-year-old ‘Denver’, was wearing his school uniform when he was filmed trying to sell her seven pills of MDMA, also known as ecstasy, at Maidstone railway station.

In the show, Stacey met Corey, from Glasgow, who said he’s been buying ecstasy since he was 12.

“It’s always been online for me,” he claimed, “It’s mainly through Snapchat and Instagram. You can get them in seconds straight to your door.”

“I think the draw to Snapchat is the fact that the messages aren’t permanent,” Corey observed. “You can speak to a larger amount of people and you can show it to people who are thinking about taking drugs.”

‘Digital’ Dealers

Using fake profiles on Instagram, Snapchat and the new ‘Tinder for Teens’ app Yellow, Stacey revealed how easy it is for children and young teens to get their hands on Class A drugs via seemingly unmoderated and unprotected social media platforms.

She was able to use emoji to ask for drugs and then arranged to meet and confront the ‘digital’ dealers.

What do you think? The more we know as parents and law enforcement professionals, the better. Social media is changing every day.

How to Find Gang Members On Social Media

Or really any group of people, for that matter. But we are using gang members because the McAfee Institute recently shared a great blog post on this topic to highlight not only ways to easily identify and search for people, groups of people/organizations, or a general topic of interest on social media but also (in my opinion) to showcase the fact that this monitoring can be easily done for public facing social content.

If you recall, I wrote a blog post about the ACLU raising concern with social media monitoring tools, stating that they were used racially to monitor people. That appears to be an ongoing situation, but I thought this article was a great way to showcase how public information can be used.
Reading through the article, you’ll see how the author starts with a simple topic search to see what public results are available; in this case, the name of the gang was used. From there, profiles that use that name in their profile come up as a list of results; while some will be private and not accessible, some will be public. This is where the research begins.

It can be time consuming, but in looking at various profiles on Facebook, one can learn quite a bit about the organization of people who belong to it. This can be done through looking at:

Photos: looking for tattoos that are known to identify gang members, hand signals/gestures, or other group identifying features in an individual’s photos.

About: some will publicly display their affiliation, while others will use language that is specific to the gang they belong to. Knowing what to look for can provide helpful clues.

The “More” tab: in this section is where “check ins” and events are noted. You can also see other organizations, groups, or people the individual likes, follows, or participates in.

By taking a look at several profiles, you will likely find common terms used, who tends to participate in events, and even find check in locations that are a common thread among gang members. This can be extremely useful information, and, while tedious, can be used to keep communities safe.

Is Smart Technology Next?

Back in 2007, when social media first took off, monitoring social content started to come into play. As it progressed, so did monitoring techniques and uses. Retail brands find value in social data, as do HR departments, and even law enforcement. Recently social media monitoring has made the news, with the ACLU speaking out against monitoring used by law enforcement to track and identify potential threats. The ACLU maintains that this is not used solely for the purpose of tracking and identifying threats, but instead to profile certain groups of individuals. If you read my prior post on why I think the ACLU is wrong, you’ll know I strongly disagree with their opinions.

When I saw the news about smart technology recordings potentially being used as evidence, I wondered how the ACLU (and the general public) feel about this if there are such grave concerns about monitoring public social content. If you haven’t heard, police in Bentonville, Arkansas are asking Amazon to release recorded data from a murder suspect’s Echo – they served Amazon with a warrant to turn this over. At the time of this writing, Amazon has turned over the suspect’s account detail, including purchase history, but has refused to turn over recorded data.

It’s an interesting turn of events, and one that I believe will spark new laws and regulations, much like the controversy of unlocking an iPhone found earlier this year related to a terror incident.

So, will smart technology serve as a stream of potential evidence? It’s unclear exactly what is recorded with such devices, but in the case of Amazon’s Echo, it’s likely some content is recorded – after all, it has to “listen” for the command to start actively listening.

It doesn’t just stop with these speaker devices either – in the story of the murder suspect, police have also looked at his “smart” water meter – with that data, they were able to determine that there were 140 gallons of water used between 1am and 3am on the night of the murder. Police may presume that water was used to clean up evidence, and this data seems as though it was easily obtained.

This is an entirely new ballgame and very different from social media monitoring. If these smart devices have random recordings of private conversations, it opens up a whole new can of worms. Do the one and two party consent laws apply to smart devices? Can private conversations in one’s home be used as evidence? Do the manufacturers of these smart products have an obligation to turn over such data under a warrant?

Just like social media content, this is going to be a tricky, murky area that will take quite a bit of time to iron out. I anticipate it will be more difficult to set standards than it was with social media – after all, social media standards and laws surrounding its use are still being ironed out over a decade later.

How do you feel about this? Is this too much, or is it a necessary, useful tool to help law enforcement and even the government solve cases and mitigate potential threats to the general public? We’d love to hear your thoughts – feel free to share your thoughts below.

Don’t Be a Kardashian

This week, Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris. It’s a well known fact that the Kardashian’s love social media and the attention that comes from it – in fact, Kim alone has millions of followers on her social media sites.

Speculation abound, a recent article talks about the fact that she was a fairly easy target thanks to her social media activity. There are also suspicions that this could be a publicity stunt, but we’ll let the police determine that.

There are some good lessons that can be taken from this incident that you can put into practice on your own social media sites, whether this is in fact a real incident or even if it’s a hoax – you may not have millions of followers, but social media has definitely made it easier for criminals to do their work.

Be humble: you may be proud of your latest big purchase, whether it’s a new car, or jewelry, or the newest electronic gadget. Be cautious when posting – it may encourage criminals scouting your page to pay a visit to your home, especially if your social media profile is wide open to the public. Kim posted an image of her ring on Instagram which was immediately viewable by anyone who wanted to see it.

Save those vacation pics for your return home: or at least try to not disclose too much about your travels, such as the date and time you’ll return home (so people don’t know how long your house will be empty), or, better yet, save the picture uploads to share once you’re back home. If you enjoy sharing your travels as they are happening, be smart about it – be sure your privacy settings are as strict as possible so the images are only visible to friends and family. One thing in the Kardashian case is that they posted pictures along the way, making it easy for people to track their location and where they would be at any given time.

Keep your location quiet: You can still share vacation pics in real time if you are sure your phone’s GPS is turned off and your captions are more generic (ie “Having a great time at the beach!”). Criminals can find ways to find out the location from where an image is taken when a phone’s GPS or locator service is turned on.

Routines are easy to spot online: in a very random moment of complete boredom, I caught a portion of an episode of “Keeping up with the Kardashians” in which the older sisters were cautioning their youngest sister, Kylie, about posting on social media while out and about. From what I gathered, she had a stalker following her (or maybe she suspected she did; I didn’t watch long enough to figure it out). Her sisters chastised her for posting pictures from the restaurant and including the location of where they were. If you tend to check in to the same places online on a regular basis, it could give criminals insight into your routine.

These seem like common sense tips, but ones that tend to fall by the wayside. When you’re a celebrity, it’s much more difficult – social media brings attention and brand awareness, and fans want to see every detail of a celebrity’s life. The Kardashian family makes their living on this type of attention, but they can still be smart about it. When it comes to social media responsibility and sharing, don’t be a Kardashian!

Educating Students by Taking Social Media Conflict Offline

Educating teens on social media use and responsibility is quite the challenge – with the immediacy and constant availability of social media, teens tend to use social media to vent frustration, share conflict, or even sometimes with the intent to harm a classmate’s reputation. Most times, teens don’t have malicious intent – they are simply posting their thoughts to social sites because that’s what they know.

In Alberta, they are taking a more focused approach to taking social media content offline to resolve content and education both parents and students. As they realizing that most social media postings and conflict are not necessarily criminal in nature, but need to be addressed, they have focused on intervention techniques that take the social conflict offline for resolution.

The RCMP, who is heading up this initiative, does not (yet) monitor social media to identify such content; instead, they rely on parent and student reports of content that is deemed problematic. From there, they formed a community justice forum which brings teens (and parents) together to discuss issues raised online. A recent article sums up teen social media conflict quite nicely:

“A lot of the issues are interpersonal conflict being dealt with in an inappropriate way,” says Kading. “Even as adults we are learning socialization skills all the time. I think a lot of the time, the conversations (our officers have) on an informal basis with young people can serve more effectively than if we have to go a formal route.”

Schools can learn from this example and even take a more proactive approach through social media monitoring. While it’s almost impossible to capture any and all conflict, location based monitoring can help monitor social media content that is posted while within the school boundaries. By identifying potential issues, schools can proactively engage at risk students or address student conflicts as they arise. This can help educate students on the reality and permanent nature of online content, and make them think before they post. The schools can provide students with tools for handling conflict offline, thus building relationship skills among their student body.

While this will always exist, finding ways to education the teenage set on social media responsibility and offline interpersonal relationships can be effective in raising responsible young adults.