How Fracking Companies Use Facebook Surveillance To Ban Protest (vice.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Facebook is being used by oil and gas companies to clamp-down on protest. Three companies are currently seeking injunctions against protesters: British chemical giant INEOS, which has the largest number of shale gas drilling licenses in the UK; and small UK outfits UK Oil and Gas (UKOG), and Europa Oil and Gas. Among the thousands of pages of documents submitted to British courts by these companies are hundreds of Facebook and Twitter posts from anti-fracking protesters and campaign groups, uncovered by Motherboard in partnership with investigative journalists at DeSmog UK. They show how fracking companies are using social media surveillance carried out by a private firm to strengthen their cases in court by discrediting activists using personal information to justify banning their protests.

Included in the evidence supplied by the oil and gas companies to the courts are many personal or seemingly irrelevant campaigner posts. Some are from conversations on Facebook groups dedicated to particular protests or camps, while others have been captured from individuals' own profile pages. For instance, a picture of a mother with her baby at a protest was submitted as part of the Europa Oil and Gas case. Another screenshot of a post in the Europa bundle shows a hand-written note from one of the protesters' mothers accompanying a care package with hand-knitted socks that was sent to an anti-fracking camp. One post included in the UKOG hearing bundle shows two protesters sharing a pint in the sun -- not at a protest camp, nor shared on any of the campaign pages' Facebook groups. A screenshot from INEOS's hearing bundle shows posts from a protester to his own Facebook wall regarding completely unrelated issues such as prescription drugs, and a generic moan about his manager.

Comments

Re:Ok, those weren't good examples

[mysidia]

how exactly are those leading to protest bans?

Basically, because many protest groups rely on skirting the law and having a large group conducting activities which are technically illegal to try to bring attention to their message, And because such a large group is involved, it is difficult to hold anyone legally responsible for the violations of the law.

The fracking operations occur on fracking sites which are located on Private Property which the Oil companies have the right to control access to, because they are plots of land owned by or leased by the company ----- Nobody has the right to protest on private property without the owner's permission, And if the owner specifically tells you ahead of time to stay off their property, and you step onto it anyways, then you've committed criminal Trespass: this is basically what they're doing to these people which is being called "banning the protest" ----- they're pre-emptively seeking a court order that says "Stay off my land,
  And stay away from my driveway".

The companies claim to seek injunction because the companies believe that protestors/protest groups intend to Trespass on their property in order to hold their protestes "Around the fracking sites", Or undertake other strategies designed to disrupt their lawful business activities --- such as having pedestrians standing in or otherwise outside their property blocking, harrassing, preventing, or slowing down the ability of authorized traffic to use the property access roads or streets or driveways, Or disrupt employee/vendor/company-related trucks or other vehicles' access to their property or to harass persons/vehicles entering or leaving their private properties.

As noted in the article:

The companies all stress they do not seek to restrict lawful forms of protest, but argue that activists should not be allowed to unduly disrupt their lawful business activity.

Since social media surveillance reveals the identities of many people likely to participate in such protests; the companies can go to the court and provide a List of Names and Pre-Emptively ask the courts for an Injunctive order that the named individuals Not set foot on our land, Or participate in any activity
  to disrupt the business operation of one of our fracking sites.