NEW: Leveraging close ties to Twitter, Dataminr helped law enforcement agencies digitally monitor the protests following the killing of George Floyd, tipping off police to social media posts with the latest whereabouts and actions of demonstrators. interc.pt/2ZWeAxl #BLM
Twitter, up until recently a longtime investor in Dataminr alongside the CIA, provides the company with full access to a content stream known as the “firehose” — one that lets Dataminr, recently valued at over $1.8 billion, scan every public tweet as soon as its author hits send.
Based on interviews, public records requests, and company documents reviewed by The Intercept, Dataminr continues to enable what is essentially surveillance by U.S. law enforcement entities, contradicting earlier assurances to the contrary.
Despite Dataminr’s claims that its law enforcement service merely “delivers breaking news alerts,” the company has facilitated the surveillance of recent nonviolent protests, siphoning vast amounts of social media data and converting it into tidy police intelligence packages.
Both companies denied that the protest monitoring meets the definition of surveillance.
Read the full story by @samfbiddle, with research assistance by W. Paul Smith. interc.pt/2AN1XMM #BLM #GeorgeFloydProtests
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