eChatter

When Social Media Puts Law Enforcement In Harm’s Way, Put The Cats To Work

Social media has become a powerful tool for law enforcement, especially with the addition of location based social media monitoring. It can be helpful in being alerted to potential situations, finding witnesses to a crime, and even monitoring for potential threats to the general public.

With the good, however, comes the not-so-good. Because people love to post on social sites, there are times that this can put police in harm’s way or create a breakdown in a situation. The most recent example of this occurred overseas – Brussels to be exact. With the city on lockdown due to potential threats, law enforcement has been diligently looking for clues that support the possibility of a threat, and prevent it before it happens.

Yesterday, news broke that some streets were being closed off and heavy police activity was noted. People were posting comments and images from their windows, hotel rooms, and on the street. Officials, knowing that this was of course happening, tried to stop it so that those who may be involved in activities that pose a threat to the city are not tipped off. It sounded as though more police raids were in progress, similar to what we’ve seen in Paris in the last week, and police did not want anything to tip off those they were searching for.

In what seemed like a futile effort, federal police posted the following on Twitter:

“For safety, please observe radio silence on social media about ongoing police operations #Bruxelles. Thank you.”

When I saw this, I wondered how it would work – would people respond to the request, realizing that it was in everyone’s best interest? Or would it go unnoticed?

What happened next was pretty cool.

Residents took to the hashtag #BrusselsLockdown with a renewed goal. Rather than discuss what was happening, they turned the hashtag around and had some fun with it. Within a short period of time, residents flocked to social media and posted pictures of cats instead of anything happening in Brussels:

Federal officials were pleased with the public’s response and appreciative of the radio silence that allowed them to carry out their operations as covertly as possible. To thank the public, the tweet below was posted to their site earlier today:

“For cats who helped us last night….Help yourself!”

Will What You Post on Social Media Affect Your FICO Score?

While that’s not happening yet, it may play a role in the future.

The latest news reveals that FICO is rolling out a potentially new way to determine credit scores. This new method, referred to as FICO XD, is being used as a pilot program. According to the website, this new FICO score will be calculated using “alternativedata sources to give issuers a second opportunity to assess otherwise unscorable consumers.”

What does this mean? Essentially, they are partnering with Lexis Nexus Risk Solutions and Equifax to look at more widely spanned information, such as utility bill history and public records, in order to potentially provide credit to those who may not have a credit history as of yet, for example. This is an attempt to be able to offer credit to an untapped market – those who don’t have a FICO score and/or cannot be properly assessed using traditional methods.

While Lexis Nexus is geared toward public information that is more “informational” in nature, it would not be a surprise at all if, in the future, FICO utilizes social media content as a factor in determining one’s score. Seem farfetched? Maybe. Then again, think of how social media content is currently being used. What once started out as strictly social content is now being used by brands for marketing data, HR departments to make hiring decisions, and by law enforcement and law firms.

How could social data be used as a factor in generating a FICO score? By looking at an individual’s social media history, it can uncover some potential trends that may be in favor of that individual (or not). What if an individual’s social media accounts are filled with images of parties and commentary on how the rent is late yet again, but they aren’t concerned? What if an individual posts content about being “wasted yet another Friday night?” This is an informational, relatively loose predictive analysis when it comes to financial stability or financial risk, and one that FICO may eventually turn to in calculating credit risk on individuals.

That being said, we are still a way from that happening. Data collected through social media is still in murky water, and it will take some time to sort out how it can and cannot be used in situations such as this one. Hiring managers have quickly learned how to use social media to their advantage while maintaining strict FCRA standards; it won’t be long before other institutions follow suit.

It Takes a Village…

How often have you heard the term “it takes a village” – I’ve heard this mostly in relation to raising children. I think it now applies to social media.

More and more, when tragedies occur, the first thing we will hear is how their social media accounts gave clues or veiled indications that something was about to happen. This does not happen in all cases, of course, but it is heard more and more often. If that’s the case, why is more not being done?

Take the case of the recent Oregon shooting, the suspect’s social sites were allegedly filled with images of other shootings, guns, and the like. What’s more disturbing is that there was an anonymous chat circulating with a potential warning that this would be happening:

While the poster is listed as “anonymous”, why did no one involved alert authorities? In this instance, it was speculated that the other posters were like minded and were perhaps “egging him on.” However, perhaps if something was mentioned to someone, it could have been avoided.

On the flip side, a story recently made news where people DID act on what they saw. It was a widely circulated story about a young woman who was driving under the influence while live streaming using Periscope, an up and coming social media tool. Thankfully, as you can see from the bottom corner of the video, it is tagged with the city and state she is in. Part way through the video she also references a street name. People were chatting in response to her video, most encouraging her to not drive anymore, some simply not saying anything of substance. However, there were some who stepped up and called the local authorities; this woman was eventually arrested. Those who reported the incident likely saved her life and potentially others as well.

One of the potentially valuable benefits of the enhanced data collection methods in social media content is geotagged monitoring. Schools, law enforcement, social venues, and other similar entities are starting to realize the importance of this type of monitoring as a means of identifying potential threats in their community. By monitoring social data around their venue, they can be alerted to potential threats, or postings that indicate trouble in some way.

Of course not every community does this, or has the capability to do so. That’s why it takes a village – if everyone takes responsibility to report something “off” in social media, it can circumvent potential tragedies or help people in crisis.

Colleges & Social Media Threats: What Can Be Done?

With the horrific shooting in Oregon last week, there have been many threats to college campuses across the nation. Most have been unfounded, thankfully, but it raises an important question – how can law enforcement and colleges monitor for potential threats, and know when to take them seriously?

At this stage in the game, all perceived threats have to be taken seriously. While some will pose threats directly to the college itself, it is becoming more and more important for schools and law enforcement to monitor social media to look for potential threats on social sites.

Like finding a needle in a haystack, this is an undaunting task. Thanks to the evolution of social media monitoring, it can be easier than it has been. Using geography based monitoring programs, social content posted in the vicinity of an area can be monitored, with alerts sent for posts containing specific keywords, hashtags, or phrases that may warrant a closer look.

How can this help?

It can help identify those who are posting threats or content that may indicate potential trouble, both by user name and location. Geographic based monitoring can pinpoint coordinates for a specific location from which the user was posting content, which can be helpful in identifying those who are posting on anonymous sites, such as YikYak.

By using careful monitoring setup, schools and law enforcement can identify the potential for trouble by creating profiles of users who are posting content that may indicate they are struggling somehow, whether it be with mental health issues, school bullying, or depression/suicidal thoughts. Those users can then be more closely monitored, as can their connections with others, to possibly prevent tragedies such as the Oregon shooting.

Social monitoring can aid in investigation and arrest of those making threats. A recent article showed how a threat was made to the University of Central Arkansas. They were able to identify and prosecute the person who made the threat. While his first post on YikYak was more general and police could not make an arrest based on it (he simply posted “Just want to warn you guys now, don’t come to campus next Wednesday”), his second post was more specific and allowed police to move forward. In the second post, he said, “Fellow yaks, you seem like good people and I care for you, so if you read this, please stay in your dorms or off campus next Wednesday, I care too much for you all to fall victim of the event.” While it’s not clear from the article, it seems as though it is possible that police were watching the user’s activity more closely after the first, less specific, threat was made.

There are many times when clues are posted on social sites that are sadly found after the fact. With the public paying attention and reporting anything they see as potentially concerning, as well as the enhanced social media monitoring programs available, it is hopeful that more tragedies can be prevented in the future.

Do Lawyers Have a Responsibility To Mine Social Media Content?

Social media is a game changer in many ways, and litigation is no different. While social media has been the newest way to connect with friends and family, users are not always careful in what they post. At times, this may come back to haunt them. Add to that the fact that the amount of public information that is now readily available online, and you’ve got an entire new set of data to pull for litigation support.

I came across an interesting article that discusses, at length, the role of social media in litigation. Within this article, one lawyer poses the idea of responsibility as it relates to searching online information when preparing a case.

“Attorney George” is cited in the article sharing his thoughts on the importance of reviewing social media content as a part of trial preparation. He states, “We believe that running a social media search of clients, opponents, and witnesses is now part of the minimum level of due diligence expected of a competent litigator. Indeed, some courts have questioned whether lawyers who have not run Google searches on a defendant but are asserting that the person cannot be found have in fact made reasonable efforts to locate the defendant. In our view, it’s just a matter of time before malpractice claims begin to surface based on a failure to use information publicly available on the Internet.”

Since this is still new territory, so to speak, it raises a good point; can social media content be used for trial preparation, specifically when it comes to witness, defendant, or plaintiff research?

In one word: yes.

Social media monitoring has come a long way since we first entered the space back in 2007. It emerged as a way for brands to monitor what others were saying on social sites, but is much more extensive, thanks to users who like to share every moment of their lives with others. The technology behind it has evolved to a point where it goes beyond simple social sites to be all inclusive of online public content.

Google searches can provide preliminary, basic information about a person of interest; however, there is a lot of “touching” in that 1) one needs to confirm that they are correctly identifying a person, 2) that relevant data is found, with nothing missed, and 3) that the search goes beyond the first few pages of results.

Social media monitoring services have made this process easier and more streamlined. Many law firms and starting to outsource this practice, as service providers have the technology readily available to easily identify persons of interest and provide relevant results in a timely manner.

In addition to public facing content users post on social sites, a strong monitoring service can go well beyond a basic Google search and include:

Public data, including known addresses and phone numbers
Content posted on what is not considered “traditional” social sites, such as blog post comments, message boards, or commentary left on news articles
Content that was posted at the time of the social media research that may be deleted by the user by the time the trial hits. This is especially useful for content that may affect the case in some way.
Connections on social sites to other people, businesses, or entities that may be of interest and relate to the trial

I agree with the attorney cited in the article in that, at minimum, an online search should be done related to the case. Given that this information is so readily available, it will become more important for this to be done as time passes, and I anticipate that more law firms will turn toward professional social media monitoring service providers to assist with this task.