After a Loss in Vancouver, Troubling Signals of Citizen Surveillance
Last night's post-Stanley Cup riots left me disappointed in my community. Not my local community in Vancouver: after a decade living here, I can no longer be surprised by the intensity of this city's hockey madness. And to be fair, most of my fellow Vancouverites took the loss in stride. It was only a handful of drunken hooligans who turned the let-down into a crime spree.
The community that disappointed me was my community online. No sooner were the riots underway than the tweets began:
One thing. Social media should be used to arrest all the idiots being, well, idiots. #canucks #riots
So anyone going through their PVR when they get home and posting screenshots of rioters? Website idea: "Identify this Idiot"
Hey riot dummies: social media didn't exist in '94. You're gonna get busted, and I hope you do #canucksriot
Dear Vancouver, #riot degenerates are still out. I hope with social media, these douchebags are identified by their own family and friends.
This enthusiastic embrace of social media's potential role in identifying the trouble-makers immediately troubled me. I wasn't alone. As one widely-retweeted message put it:
This is the downside of smartphones and social media: douchebags taking pics and tweeting about being in the midst of the riot.
But the worrying thing about social media users turning into riot documentarians wasn't (just) the way they contributed to the crowding of Vancouver's streets. I was deeply disturbed to see the community of social media enthusiasts embrace a new role: not in observation, not in citizen journalism, but in citizen surveillance.
Documentation and narration is a core part of social media culture. There's nothing wrong with social media users snapping photos or video as part of their organic experience of an event. Whether it's for a Facebook update now or a blog post you're writing tomorrow, posting live images is a routine part of telling a story online.
But it's one thing to take pictures as part of the process of telling your story, or as part of your (paid or unpaid) work as a citizen journalist. It's another thing entirely to take and post pictures and videos with the explicit intention of identifying illegal (or potentially illegal) activity. At that moment you are no longer engaging in citizen journalism; you're engaging in citizen surveillance.
And I don't think we want to live in a society that turns social media into a form of crowdsourced surveillance. When social media users embrace Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs as channels for curating, identifying and pursuing criminals, that is exactly what they are moving toward. It may seem constructive to post photos of someone burning a car in a hockey riot, and it certainly satisfies the online community's craving to show that yes, social media can have a tangible impact. (See! The cops got a measurable ROI from their investment in Twitter!)
I am much less comfortable when I think about other ways that crowdsourced surveillance has been or might be put to use: By pro-life demonstrators posting photos of women going into clinics that provide abortions. By informants in authoritarian states tracking posts and tweets critical of the government. By employers that scan Facebook to see which of their employees have been tagged in photos on Pride Day or 4/20.
Social media users need to decide whether surveillance is going to be part of our collective mission and culture online. We need to distinguish between the opportunity (and perhaps even responsibility) that comes with widespread ownership of camera phones, and the decision to post what we snap or film. Beginning with Rodney King, we've learned that citizens with cameras may often capture the footage that is key to addressing an injustice or resolving a crime, and it's in that spirit that the Vancouver Police wisely tweeted this request last night:
Anyone with photos of people committing criminal acts, please hold onto them. With the situation on-going we will need them later. thnx
But passing along the odd photo isn't the same as turning yourself into a security camera. And it's certainly not the same as tweeting, Facebooking or blogging your way to a comprehensive portfolio of public crimes and misdemeanours.
What social media is for - or what it can be for, if we use it to its fullest potential - is to create community. And there is nothing that will erode community faster, both online and off, than creating a society of mutual surveillance.
source: from a Harvard Business Review blog
more by the same author on her own blog
interview about this use of social media by the executive-director of the BC Civil Liberties Association
I'd enjoy hearing the thoughts of this community on this. (adds imaginary intellectual freedom tag)
The community that disappointed me was my community online. No sooner were the riots underway than the tweets began:
One thing. Social media should be used to arrest all the idiots being, well, idiots. #canucks #riots
So anyone going through their PVR when they get home and posting screenshots of rioters? Website idea: "Identify this Idiot"
Hey riot dummies: social media didn't exist in '94. You're gonna get busted, and I hope you do #canucksriot
Dear Vancouver, #riot degenerates are still out. I hope with social media, these douchebags are identified by their own family and friends.
This enthusiastic embrace of social media's potential role in identifying the trouble-makers immediately troubled me. I wasn't alone. As one widely-retweeted message put it:
This is the downside of smartphones and social media: douchebags taking pics and tweeting about being in the midst of the riot.
But the worrying thing about social media users turning into riot documentarians wasn't (just) the way they contributed to the crowding of Vancouver's streets. I was deeply disturbed to see the community of social media enthusiasts embrace a new role: not in observation, not in citizen journalism, but in citizen surveillance.
Documentation and narration is a core part of social media culture. There's nothing wrong with social media users snapping photos or video as part of their organic experience of an event. Whether it's for a Facebook update now or a blog post you're writing tomorrow, posting live images is a routine part of telling a story online.
But it's one thing to take pictures as part of the process of telling your story, or as part of your (paid or unpaid) work as a citizen journalist. It's another thing entirely to take and post pictures and videos with the explicit intention of identifying illegal (or potentially illegal) activity. At that moment you are no longer engaging in citizen journalism; you're engaging in citizen surveillance.
And I don't think we want to live in a society that turns social media into a form of crowdsourced surveillance. When social media users embrace Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs as channels for curating, identifying and pursuing criminals, that is exactly what they are moving toward. It may seem constructive to post photos of someone burning a car in a hockey riot, and it certainly satisfies the online community's craving to show that yes, social media can have a tangible impact. (See! The cops got a measurable ROI from their investment in Twitter!)
I am much less comfortable when I think about other ways that crowdsourced surveillance has been or might be put to use: By pro-life demonstrators posting photos of women going into clinics that provide abortions. By informants in authoritarian states tracking posts and tweets critical of the government. By employers that scan Facebook to see which of their employees have been tagged in photos on Pride Day or 4/20.
Social media users need to decide whether surveillance is going to be part of our collective mission and culture online. We need to distinguish between the opportunity (and perhaps even responsibility) that comes with widespread ownership of camera phones, and the decision to post what we snap or film. Beginning with Rodney King, we've learned that citizens with cameras may often capture the footage that is key to addressing an injustice or resolving a crime, and it's in that spirit that the Vancouver Police wisely tweeted this request last night:
Anyone with photos of people committing criminal acts, please hold onto them. With the situation on-going we will need them later. thnx
But passing along the odd photo isn't the same as turning yourself into a security camera. And it's certainly not the same as tweeting, Facebooking or blogging your way to a comprehensive portfolio of public crimes and misdemeanours.
What social media is for - or what it can be for, if we use it to its fullest potential - is to create community. And there is nothing that will erode community faster, both online and off, than creating a society of mutual surveillance.
source: from a Harvard Business Review blog
more by the same author on her own blog
interview about this use of social media by the executive-director of the BC Civil Liberties Association
I'd enjoy hearing the thoughts of this community on this. (adds imaginary intellectual freedom tag)