Put down that “Bob Smith” fake account, put your hands in the air, and back off, Facebook told the Memphis Police Department (MPD) last Wednesday, waving its real-names policy in the air.
In a letter to MPD Director Michael Rallings, Facebook’s Andrea Kirkpatrick, director and associate general counsel for security, scolded the police for creating multiple fake Facebook accounts and impersonating legitimate Facebook users as part of its investigations into “alleged criminal conduct unrelated to Facebook.”
This activity violates our terms of service. The Police Department should cease all activities on Facebook that involve the use of fake accounts or impersonation of others.
No sweat, the MPD said. We gave Bob the heave-ho before we got your letter. Fox 13 quoted a statement from public information officer Lt. Karen Rudolph:
We have received this letter; however, the account which was opened under the name Bob Smith was deleted prior to receiving this letter. No further comment will be made at this point pending ongoing litigation.
Facebook’s real-names policy is an attempt at maintaining “a community where everyone uses the name they go by in everyday life. This makes it so that you always know who you’re connecting with.”
… an idea that’s controversial, to put it mildly. For years, multiple groups have been telling Facebook (and Google, which dropped the policy four years ago) that using real names online leads to discrimination, harassment and worse, be it previously victimized women stripped of pseudonyms who were then contacted by their rapists, or Vietnamese journalists and activists whose identities were posted online after submitting legal documents to Facebook to prove they needed to use pseudonyms.
Illegal surveillance of legal activism?
In the case of Memphis, it’s police investigators who are being told to stop using fake names. Facebook’s letter was sent following a civil rights lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee that accused the MPD of illegally monitoring activists to stifle their free speech and protests.
The lawsuit claimed that Memphis police violated a 1978 consent decree that prohibits infiltration of citizen groups to gather intelligence about their activities. After two years of litigation, the city of Memphis had entered into a consent decree prohibiting the government from “gathering, indexing, filing, maintenance, storage or dissemination of information, or any other investigative activity, relating to any person’s beliefs, opinions, associations or other exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Before the trial even began over the ACLU’s lawsuit last month, US District Judge Jon McCalla issued a 35-page order agreeing with the plaintiffs, but he also ruled that police can use social media to look for specific threats: a ruling that, one imagines, would condone the use of fake profiles during undercover police work…
…but not the illegal surveillance of legal, Constitutionally protected activism.
A few months ago, criminal justice news outlet The Appeal reported that the ACLU lawsuit had uncovered evidence that Memphis police used the “Bob Smith” account to befriend and gather intelligence on Black Lives Matter activists.
According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Facebook deactivated “Bob Smith” after the organization gave it a heads-up. Then, Facebook went on to identify and deactivate six other fake accounts managed by Memphis police.
Relying on court filings in the ACLU case, former litigator Leta McCollough Seletzky wrote that Memphis investigators used the fake Bob Smith account to “cozy up to activists and access private posts.” They also sent uniformed and plainclothes officers to observe protests, noting the participants and taking photographs. They also tracked private events, including a “Black Owned Food Truck Sunday” gathering.
But do we believe that undercover cops shouldn’t drive unmarked cars, or infiltrate criminal networks? How is using a fake name different from other policing techniques that rely on stealth?
It’s easy enough to demand that the real-names policy be applied when the police illegally surveil a group of law-abiding activists. But that doesn’t make it a good policy across the board, as Native Americans, activists living under repressive regimes, or drag queens will tell you.
Police, in certain circumstances, are yet one more group who need to use fake names in their work. They really can’t flash blue lights when they open up Facebook accounts to investigate crooks, including burglars, thugs, muggers, child predators or drug dealers.
Simon McAllister
Um.. how about Facebook concentrate on fake accounts used by criminals for criminal behaviour/actions? Or… in a world where online anonymity cannot always be assured, partcularly by Facebook (in real methods, not just ‘policies’) let them scream and shout until they follow Google or have 100% failsafe methods of preventing it in the first place (yeah right!). Jeez Facebook – you have bigger fish to fry
JD
Did you not read the article? They are going after people engaged in criminal behavior, and those people happen to be the Memphis police department.
Wearing a govt-issued badge doesn’t magically make you immune to being a criminal yourself; much the contrary, as evidenced by this story.
Keith
This does not make the Memphis Police Dept. criminals. Facebook doesn’t make law. It’s against the ToS, as it says in the article.
My FB acccount is almost a complete lie. The people I contact with it know who I am and I don’t much care about FB.
Mahhn
Not that I disagree, but since I tend to play devils advocate,,, how will FB tell the difference between a stalker and police? New category of accounts with FB- law enforcement back end noted with FB as a fake account that is permitted maybe? Will it require a warrant approved by a judge, or can anyone just say the are the police, what if the person that is an officer decides to abuse his approved fake account? My friends dog has a FB account, is that fake? I made one 8 years ago – all fake data poorly done, just to post a news article to a punks friends – that he had committed a crime against a young lady. His punishment did not fit the crime, so I made sure his friends knew who he really is – was that wrong? the account is still active, it is a picture and name of a BIG fish (which is why I replied)
Thomas L. Knapp
Make it simpler for everyone: If a police department has probable cause to get a warrant, Facebook can fork over the relevant data. Apart from that, there’s no legitimate excuse for a police department to be using Facebook at all, let alone under fake names.
Steve
Our local P.D. uses Facebook – very effectively – to keep the public posted about all sorts of things that are definitely within their domain. And the local citizenry really appreciates it.
Paul Ducklin
+1
As long as your local police force doesn’t require you to use Facebook to see what they’ve got to say, why not? Road closure reminders, warnings that the station might be really busy over the weekend because of the football game, appeals for witnesses in the case of traffic accidents, offering thanks to the public when missing persons get found and taken to safety, memorials for colleagues who died on duty, fun snaps that show the community side of policing…
…law enforcement teams are required to be imperturbable and impartial, but they aren’t obliged to be boring and stuck in the past.
Police in the UK seem to use social media quite extensively – but by no means exclusively, so no one is losing out – to get their messages across, and I don’t see law and order breaking down. In fact, from a community engagement point of view, people seem to like it – and many use it as a way to say thanks to the cops for helping them out when they needed it. Seems a pretty legitimate and unexceptionable use of Facebook to me.
Caroline
It’s cute that Facebook is pretending to be outraged by fake names, when anybody who has reported a few of them could tell you just how disinterested they actually are in this issue.