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Surveillance Firm 'Geofeedia' Cuts Half of Staff After Losing Access To Twitter, Facebook (chicagotribune.com)
In mid-October, an American Civil Liberties Union issued a report accusing police of using Geofeedia -- a CIA-backed social-media monitoring platform -- to track protests and other large gatherings. As a result, Instagram, Facebook and eventually, Twitter cut the company off from its valuable data stream, causing them to cut half of their staff to "focus on a variety of innovations" that will allow them to serve their customers and continue their "rapid growth trajectory as a leading real-time analytics and alerting platform." Chicago Tribune reports: Geofeedia cut the jobs, mostly in sales in the Chicago office, in the third week of October, the spokesman said. It has offices in Chicago, Indianapolis and Naples, Fla. The cuts were first reported by Crain's Chicago Business. An emailed statement attributed to CEO Phil Harris said Geofeedia wasn't "created to impact civil liberties," but in the wake of the public debate over their product, they're changing the company's direction. Harris said Geofeedia's software has been "impactful" for schools, sports leagues, customer service, marketing and event planning, per the statement. He also referred to the company's $17 million funding round in February -- which brought its total funding to nearly $24 million -- and "strong sales and growth" as strengthening the company. "Our strong financial position has allowed us to carefully consider the appropriate areas of focus for our technology going forward," Harris wrote in the statement.
What Civil Liberties...
And shooting them. Full auto no remorse. You work for these evil companies you deserve to be executed. Live like a dog die like a dog!
Sounds like nonsense. You aren't going to cut off anyone (in a meaningful way) without damaging most all of your commercial clients
Geofeedia wasn't "created to impact civil liberties,"
Yes, I'm sure you had the CIA as one of your primary customers in order for them to ensure their Christmas card distribution list was accurate. Let's keep pretending they just sell donuts for the government or some shit...
... because those of us who dabble in this space have been banned too many times to count.
We just put on a hoodie, grab a freemail and get back into the game.
Those guys are still grabbing data and selling it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Multiple, apparently respectable, companies, each with their own data feeds from twitter, facebook, etc. Sharing all the data with another company that does the actual spying.
This then via highly complex technical; and legal constructs, so that the source of the 'leak' cannot be traced. Possibly even all legal, and technically not violating any agreement they may have with Twitter, Facebook, etc., but certainly setup in such a way that, if the shit does hit the fan, nobody can be held accountable.
You know this will happen. Likely it is already happening.
... is: "..a CIA-backed social-media monitoring platform.."
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
This is a true win for freedom!
Apps!
Just a silly PR stunt by the companies who think they banned someone.
Being the patented dicks that they are. When asked if they were using this platform, instead of coming out and answering the question, they respond like the douchbags that they are with "file a FOIA request" so they can deny it and force the requester to take them to court. Why make it easy on the public they are supposed to protect and serve.