ISSUE 01: STATE(D) VIOLENCE
ABOUT
RACHEL LAUREN MYERS
Rachel Lauren Myers is a poet living in Massachusetts. Her work can be found in Red Ogre Review, Okay Donkey, SoFloPoJo, RESOURCES, and elsewhere. She is an assistant editor for MEMEZINE. She believes in a free Palestine.
STATEMENT
In late March, I read an Intercept article1 about the company Dataminr, which contracts with law enforcement around the world to monitor social media posts in real time using an “advanced human-AI feedback loop,” that is, using an advanced algorithm to search for keywords that are identified and manually fed to the AI using human “domain experts.” This was not news to me. But I became concerned by this quote: a Dataminr account manager emailed three LAPD officers, whose names are redacted, with the subject line “FYSA,” military shorthand meaning “for your situational awareness.” The email informed the officers of a “Protest planned for October 14 at 12:30 at Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles,” with a link to a tweet by a Los Angeles university professor. It’s unclear if the LAPD has requested these manual tip-offs from Dataminr, or whether such personal service is routine; Dataminr did not respond when asked if it was a standard practice. But the hands-on approach undercuts Dataminr’s prior claims that it just passively provides alerts to customers about social media speech germane to their interests.
I fixated on the statement “for your situational awareness,” a term not often used outside of the military. An unnamed account manager for a private company is using military terminology to warn the LAPD of a possible impending peaceful protest. A university professor posted on X, and within hours, someone’s hands were on that tweet. What were the specific search terms used to single out this post? Who chooses the terms? Domain experts, that’s who. Who is on staff at Dataminr? Intercept has articles about that, too. Yet Dataminr maintains there is no implicit bias in this system. I find the lie disgusting. I find co-opting military language during the monitoring of civilians disgusting. I’m disturbed that from an average of 15 million tweets a day, Dataminr’s algorithm can single out one person and alert law enforcement to action in real time. This is sold as a product to increase the safety of the civilian population. Which civilians? Think about the human beings forcefully disappeared off the streets today. Think about the power of a surveillance state, and consider how safe you really are. For your situational awareness.
RE: FOR YOUR SITUATIONAL AWARENESS