AI Summary
5 min readSocials for Sale
It was like something out of a spy thriller. An investigative reporter got his hands on a government file about a Harvard graduate student living in Seattle. The document, circulated to dozens of law enforcement officers, was built entirely around a single TikTok video she had posted warning her audience about impending ICE raids in the Yakima Valley. In the video, she called ICE agents "domestic terrorists" who should be dealt with as such. The police threat bulletin included her name, her social media handle, where they believed she lived, her occupation, and photographs lifted from her social media. It characterized her speech as "spreading extremist ideology" and "attempting a call to action against a government entity." The document also noted she was not even likely to attend the protest itself. And the word "threat" was misspelled.
The social media surveillance marketplace
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:05) **The Threat Bulletin That Misspelled "Threat"** - Dell Cameron of Wired describes a government threat bulletin built entirely from a single TikTok video, targeting a Harvard grad student who warned about ICE raids.
- 2 (05:58) **The Government's Social Media Shopping Spree** - The government doesn't just scroll your feed; it buys your data in bulk from brokers and social media companies.
- 3 (07:35) **How the Surveillance Machine Works: Lists, Faces, and Location** - The government uses social media data to create target lists, build dossiers, and track people via facial recognition and location data.
- 4 (12:49) **Buying Your Location Data to Plan Raids** - The government purchases location data from brokers to physically target individuals for enforcement actions.
- 5 (15:50) **Social Media Companies: From Fighters to Bedfellows** - Social media companies have shifted from fighting subpoenas to cooperating with law enforcement, often for financial gain.
- 6 (20:49) **The Slippery Slope: From Criminals to Ideology** - The government's surveillance criteria are expanding from criminal activity to ideological stances, with fewer checks and balances.
- 7 (23:39) **What's (Sort of) Safe and What's Not** - The only truly protected data is the content of your messages; everything else can be bought and sold.
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Show Notes
Most of us know the internet isn't a particularly private place. Yet there's a certain feeling of anonymity that comes with sharing online — our words and stories mixed in with millions of others. It's easy to think no one is watching.
But your data isn't just vulnerable to prying eyes. It's for sale. And the government is buying it up to keep a closer eye on you — and all of us.
This week, hosts Amory and Ben take a chilling look at how our social media is used for surveillance with Dell Cameron, an investigative reporter with WIRED covering privacy and national security.
- ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team (WIRED)
- Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts (The New York Times)
- ICE has spun a massive surveillance web. We talked to people caught in it (NPR)
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