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EFF: Facebook Should Notify Users Who Interact With Fake Police 'Sock Puppet' Accounts (eff.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a senior investigative researcher at the EFF:
Despite Facebook's repeated warnings that law enforcement is required to use "authentic identities" on the social media platform, cops continue to create fake and impersonator accounts to secretly spy on users. By pretending to be someone else, cops are able to sneak past the privacy walls users put up and bypass legal requirements that might require a warrant to obtain that same information...
EFF is now calling on Facebook to escalate the matter with law enforcement in the United States. Facebook should take the following actions to address the proliferation of fake/impersonator Facebook accounts operated by law enforcement, in addition to suspending the fake accounts.
- As part of its regular transparency reports, Facebook should publish data on the number of fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts identified, what agencies they belonged to, and what action was taken.
- When a fake/impersonator account is identified, Facebook should alert the users and groups that interacted with the account whether directly or indirectly.
The article also suggests updating Facebook's Terms of Service to explicitly prohibit fake/impersonator profiles by law enforcement groups, and updating Facebook pages of law enforcement groups to inform visitors when those groups have a written policy allowing fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts. "These four changes are relatively light lifts that would enhance transparency and establish real consequences for agencies that deliberately violate the rules..."
"Facebook's practice of taking down these individual accounts when they learn about them from the press (or from EFF) is insufficient to deter what we believe is a much larger iceberg beneath the surface."
EFF is now calling on Facebook to escalate the matter with law enforcement in the United States. Facebook should take the following actions to address the proliferation of fake/impersonator Facebook accounts operated by law enforcement, in addition to suspending the fake accounts.
- As part of its regular transparency reports, Facebook should publish data on the number of fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts identified, what agencies they belonged to, and what action was taken.
- When a fake/impersonator account is identified, Facebook should alert the users and groups that interacted with the account whether directly or indirectly.
The article also suggests updating Facebook's Terms of Service to explicitly prohibit fake/impersonator profiles by law enforcement groups, and updating Facebook pages of law enforcement groups to inform visitors when those groups have a written policy allowing fake/impersonator law enforcement accounts. "These four changes are relatively light lifts that would enhance transparency and establish real consequences for agencies that deliberately violate the rules..."
"Facebook's practice of taking down these individual accounts when they learn about them from the press (or from EFF) is insufficient to deter what we believe is a much larger iceberg beneath the surface."
Are there any real people on social media these days? Seems mostly to be a lot of simulacra marketing something at you.
Here's a crazy idea: if you are doing things that would make the police want to spy on you, don't accept random friend requests on Facebook? Better yet, maybe don't do/post about said things on Facebook in the first place? And if one of your friends/acquaintances sends you a friend request, call them up first to make sure they actually sent it.
And of course, we all remember the first rule of the internet; the men are men, the women are men, and the children are FBI agents.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I am an EFF member, but they are wrong here. Internet web sites should not be enforcing how people use the site. We've been talking about this slippery slope since the late '90s, and the real implications we experience are worse than the ones we speculated about back then. Web sites shouldn't be taking down hate speech because it is defined differently in every municipality on the planet. They shouldn't be taking down fake accounts because everyone's definition of fake -vs- legitimate varies. Definitely don't interfere with law enforcement (or help them) since law enforcement varies around the world. We can't write an algorithm to determine if someone is a cop and if their actions are legal. Facebook should not preventing advertisers from targeting certain groups because then every group will have a complaint about the advertisers - it will never end.. Advertising laws vary in every country. Don't try to stop Russian election trolls because the trolls are almost indistinguishable from valid commentary. Free speech is free speech. If you subscribe to stupid stuff, you get what you asked for. What one person thinks is a troll is another person's legitimate opinion.
The computer is a tool and should be wielded just like a hammer or a typewriter or a pen. Stop trying to teach the computer morality, it won't work. Instead, teach the humans to use the tool correctly. They should read things on Facebook with the same skepticism that they read The National Enquirer. People need to stop blaming the tool when they are duped!