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RCMP seek to boost social media mining to identify threats – Global News
Canada’s national police force wants a digital tool to harvest data from a sweeping variety of online sources, including the darkest reaches of the internet, to provide early information on threats such as disease outbreaks and mass shootings.
The software would allow an RCMP officer to quickly mine data about a person’s internet activities, from an emoji posting on Facebook to an illicit firearm purchase on the so-called darknet.
“Social media and publicly available information will be used to identify threats and address public concerns,” says the RCMP contract tender.
The application would also help spot brewing public-relations issues “and enhance strategic, operational and tactical information for improved decision-making in a crisis or major-event setting.”
The tender says the tool should include a dashboard with reports on breaking news, mass-casualty events, terrorist attacks, disease outbreaks and natural disasters.
The solicitation notice was issued in mid-April, just days before a gunman went on a deadly rampage in Nova Scotia.
However, the initiative is rooted in another tragedy, the fatal shootings of three police officers and the woundings of two others in Moncton, N.B., six years ago.
A report on the events recommended the RCMP procure a real-time social-media monitoring tool to help identify risks and improve public communication, noted Cpl. Caroline Duval, an RCMP spokeswoman.
“The police must keep pace with the emergence of new technologies to best serve their communities,” Duval said. “Social-media analysis can support public safety in a variety of ways.”
The RCMP already uses such information to detect threats to major events, infrastructure or other locations, she said. It has also helped identify dangers to public figures and prevent suicides, school shootings and other criminal actions discussed on social media, Duval added.
Such trawling of open-source material by the Mounties has also raised privacy questions.
A Toronto activist concerned about mining-industry abuses recently learned the Mounties compiled a six-page profile of her shortly after she showed up at a federal leaders debate during the 2015 election campaign.
Rachel Small, an organizer with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network, said it was “kind of creepy and unsettling” to see the RCMP profile, which came to light years later through an access-to-information request.
The new software tool would sift publicly available Internet data sources and content including, but not limited to, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, chatrooms, message boards, social networks, and video and image-sharing websites.
The tender suggests the tool have a broach reach, capable of turning up data from cyberspots such as deal-shopping site Groupon and gaming platform Farmville.
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Nova Scotia opposition leaders say public inquiry is the next step to examining mass shooting
It would also delve into content found in less visible segments of the internet, the deep web and darknet, that can elude commonly used search engines.
The new tool would complement the RCMP’s existing Social Studio software, used in a social media monitoring project known as Wide Awake that is designed to zero in on threats by flagging key words.
The RCMP’s efforts to divine useful information from social media have sparked discussions with the federal privacy commissioner, said Vito Pilieci, a spokesman for the ombudsman.
The commissioner’s office has highlighted the need for the RCMP to be transparent with the public about its social-media monitoring activities and the importance of a privacy impact assessment, a formal analysis of the risks to personal information, Pilieci said.
The RCMP has demonstrated the Social Studio software for the commissioner’s office, Duval said.
The police force is finalizing a privacy impact assessment on the use of social media analysis software and, once completed, will post an executive summary on the RCMP’s website, she added.
© 2020 The Canadian Press
Media
Taylor Swift's new album apparently leaks, causing social media chaos – CBC News
The hype for Taylor Swift’s new album went into overdrive as it appeared to leak online two days ahead of its Friday release.
Swifties started sharing tracks on X that they claimed were from the singer’s upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, saying they came from a Google Drive link containing all 17 songs.
Some fans were upset by the leak and said they would wait until Friday to listen while others started frantically posting fake links on X to bury the “real” tracks.
“Raise your hand if ur an ACTUAL Taylor Swift fan and aren’t listening to leaks,” one user wrote.
Several media outlets reported that X briefly blocked the search term “Taylor Swift leak” on Wednesday.
CBC has reached out to Swift’s publicist for comment.
Swift announced the release, her 11th studio album and the first with all new songs since 2022’s Midnights, at the Grammy Awards ceremony in February.
Fans have been speculating about the lyrical themes that would appear on The Tortured Poets Department, based in part on a physical “library installation” that opened Tuesday in Los Angeles, curated with items that drop hints and references to the inspirations behind the album.
Swift’s 2022 album Midnights, which featured the hit Anti-Hero, also leaked online ahead of its scheduled release date, and went on to win the Grammy for album of the year. Swift’s previous albums 1989, Reputation and Lover also leaked ahead of their official releases.
The singer is in the midst of her billion-dollar-grossing Eras tour, which is moving through the U.S. and is scheduled to conclude in Vancouver in December.
Swift was added to Forbes magazine’s annual new billionaires list earlier this month, with Forbes saying she was the first musician to become a billionaire based solely on her songs and performances.
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DJT Stock Jumps. The Truth Social Owner Is Showing Stockholders How to Block Short Sellers. – Barron's
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DJT Stock Jumps. The Truth Social Owner Is Showing Stockholders How to Block Short Sellers. Barron’s
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Taylor Swift's new album allegedly 'leaked' on social media and it's causing a frenzy – CTV News
Social media can be a divisive place, but even more so when it comes to Taylor Swift.
A Google Drive link allegedly containing 17 tracks that are purportedly from Swift’s eagerly awaited “The Tortured Poets Department” album has been making the rounds on the internet in the past day and people are equal parts mad, sad and happy about it.
CNN has reached out to Swift’s representative for comment.
The actual album is slated to drop at midnight Friday, but the claimed leak is both being hailed and nailed by Swift’s supporters.
One person shared a drawing of a young woman asleep in a sparkly bed with sparkly blankets on X, writing, “How I slept last night knowing I’m going to hear TTPD for the very first time tonight cause I haven’t listened to any leaks.”
Yet another person posted a video of two models walking and wrote, “Me and my bestie on our way to listen to #TSTTPD leaks.”
On Thursday, “Taylor Swift leaks” was a prevented search phrase on X.
The general consensus among those who have decided to be “leak free” appears to be that they are the true Swifties – as her hard core fan base is known – because they don’t believe the singer would have sanctioned such a “leak.”
Swift herself has gone to great lengths to prevent unintended early releases in the past.
“I have a lot of maybe, maybe-not-irrational fears of security invasion, wiretaps, people eavesdropping,” Swift said of her music during an 2014 appearance on” Jimmy Kimmel Live.” She added that her “1989” album only existed on her phone, “covered in cat stickers and the volume buttons don’t work very well because there’s candy stuck in there,” for nearly two years.
“The Tortured Poets Department” is Swift’s 11th album and comes after she became the first woman and only solo artist to win the Grammy for album of the year three times.
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