Another aspect of the political snooping which is being aimed at the Climate Camp political protestors and their sympathisers seems to be the new emphasis on Twitter and other Social Media like Facebook, Flickr and Blog monitoring and snooping
The Metropolitan Police seem to have been advised to set up their own Twitter feed
However this is a typical NuLabour centralised control freak model i.e. propaganda broadcast only - no way for the public to transparently feed back comments or suggestions.
Can none of the vast army of Metropolitan Police Service Press Office media spokesmen be spared to moderate some online discussion forums in real time, 24 /7 ?
The Metropolitan Police Twitter Policy::
[...]
The CO11 Met Police Event Planning Team Twitter account is managed by the enews team in the Directorate of Public Affairs, on behalf of colleagues across the department.
The account has been set up to specifically to inform the Camp for Climate Action of any operational updates relating to the policing of their event starting on 26 August.
[...]
Availability
We will update and monitor our Twitter account during periods of operational activity. Twitter may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter downtime.
@Replies and Direct Messages
We welcome feedback and ideas from all our followers. However, we are not able to reply individually to the messages we receive via Twitter.
The CO11 team reads all @replies and Direct Messages and ensures that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people.
[...]
They also seem to have hired some "social meedja" consultants (6consulting who claim to be "Social Media Monitoring and Engagement specialists"). They seem to be either "2 months in to a 6 month contract", or they might only be doing a 1 month "pilot project".
They appear to be trawling the public internet (Twitter, Facebook, Flicker, blogs etc.) for "Corporate Brand" references to the Metropolitan Police, supposedly just for public relations media monitoring spin control purposes.
See The Register Met hires Twitter consultancy
However, according to their own website, and to this slideshow presentation, it seems that
[...]
6 • Anticipation • Expectation • Misinformation • Rumor • Small but common themes
[..]
8 • Pick out campaign messages • Measure spike in conversation • Understand sentiment • Press release influencers
[...]
[...]
18 Case Study Greater Manchester Police
19 Why was Social Media Important? •Remove (Confidence measure)on forces other than on confidence • PSA 23 all top-down targets •Re-designing businesses process •Ensuring a greater focuspublic in new ways on service •Communicate with the •Training of officers •Managing your communities about your Call handling •Updating police station front desks and successes •What are they talking about? • Understanding Community •Crime Prevention •G20 •Rhys Jones Murder • Crime Detection
20 Great Manchester Police Force Vision Social Media Monitoring Respect, reassure and respond to local communities Understanding the issues affecting local communities can be better understood by monitoring conversations that happen within the social sphere about local issues by local people. A force which listens and learns Being the first UK police force to actively listen to conversations of relevance within the social sphere and using this data to shape local policing priorities Bring criminals to justice By using data within the social sphere as part of the investigative process.
21 6Consulting Vision How Provide a statistically robust measurement of Confidence in Using Radian6 map all conversations of Local Services in accordance with PSA 23 relevance.
PSA 23: Make communities safer (note the typical NuLabour Orwellian newspeakof this slogan made into public policy)
"Released at the start of October 2007, Public Service Agreement 23 (PSA 23) is part of a new Government strategy to reduce serious crime and anti-social behaviour, as part of a wider drive to develop safer and stronger communities"
Classify by the five degrees of sentiment. Group into three top level groups (promoters, passives, detractors) calculate confidence metrics. Map confidence score against patterns of crime. Identify top 10 issues affecting local community by BCU area Map all conversations of relevance. Classify by BCU area. Group by conversation type. Group by area affected (gun, car or other crime). Analyse for trends. Build a robust data framework and reporting system for long Bespoke build data framework specific to term policing objectives policing issues. Bespoke build Metrix6 reporting interface.
22 Conversation mapping & Data Segmentation
23 Output Reporting to presented via a bespoke built Metrix6 dashboard - Segmented by BCU ‣ Segmented by AOR - Confidence scoring for BCU - Influencer map by AOR ‣ Drill down capability into conversations
BCU = Basic Command Unit (e.g. Oldham Police, Trafford Police etc. sub-divisions of a large urban Police force like Greater Manchester Police)
AOR = Agency of Record (i.e. advertising agency or type of media e.g. broadcast televion.or local newspaper etc )
24 What are your community talking about? Anti Social? Violent Crime? Alcohol Related? Drug Related?
- How much genuine information will they be able to recognise in time ?
- How much innocent data will they manage to misinterpret ?
- How many innocent people will be caught up in mass data trawling exercises which attempt to analyse Twitter or Mobile Phone Communications Traffic Data, including Location Data and Friendship Trees etc ?
- How much deliberate disinformation will they gullibly swallow ?
Did you see those slides? I'm not quite sure why Manchester police are so interested in Special K and Optivita.
I have to admit, that last question hadn't occurred to me. Hrm. :)
Just when I thought I've seen it all! A week ago I stumbled on SpyRocks.com and saw their wireless night-vision surveillance cameras hidden inside fake rocks and artificial tree stumps for outdoor home security. They actually look realistic!!! (Their website has a cool section with photos of spy gadgets and hidden cameras throughout history too). What next??? LOL!