“From concerned citizens to self-appointed commercial CSI’s”:
How social media challenge and transform law and order
Source: http://facebookjustice.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/police-and-social-media-%E2%80%93-institutional-leadership-problems/
Research Master Media Studies, University of Amsterdam Name: Sanne Kraijenbosch (sannekrayenbosch@hotmail.com) Thesis supervisors: Thomas Poell and José van Dijck
Date of completion: 10-07-14 Student number: 6132731
Index
ABSTRACT
1. Introduction p. 4
2. Social media and surveillance: Theorizing new dynamics in law and order p. 7 2.1 Social media and the challenges for top-down police surveillance p. 7 2.2 Multiple dynamics in crowdsourcing surveillance: p. 12
“The surveillant assemblage”
2.2.1 Social media and the transformations in bottom-up surveillance: p. 14 “sousveillance”
2.3 Social media and web 2.0 surveillance: p. 16
Sur- and sousveillance confronted
2.4 Methodology: Theory and practice p .19
3. Unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts on social media platforms: p. 22 The case of cat Luna
3.1 Introduction p. 22
3.2 Hyper-vigilant citizens policing on social media p. 23 3.3 Web 2.0 wanted posters: Catching the perpetrator(s) or…? p. 30 3.4 From tracking perpetrators to attacking law enforcement p. 34 3.5 Conclusion p. 36 4. Making money out of Do-It-Yourself surveillance: The Shell-Tausch case p. 37
4.1 Introduction p. 37
4.2 Surveilling social media: Generating profit out of bottom-up forms of p. 39 surveillance
4.3 Advocating crowdsourced manhunts on social media p. 42 4.3.1 Law and order operating in the commercial realm of private p. 48
entrepreneurs
4.4 Conclusion p. 51
5. Law enforcers’ crowdsourcing criminal tracking: The head kickers case p. 52 5.1 Introduction p. 52 5.2 Freeze or release? p. 53 5.3 Sousveilling crowdsourced criminal tracking p. 56 5.4 Conclusion p. 60
6. Who the hat fits…wears it p. 61
ABSTRACT
This thesis explores how social media platforms challenge and transform law and order. Both law enforcement and the public are increasingly using social media platforms, in combination with mobile technologies, to identify and locate criminals. So far, in current research in the field of surveillance studies, most attention has either been paid to such top-down practices of institutional police surveillance or on citizens’ bottom-up forms of surveillance, conceptualized as sousveillance. This research first establishes a problem with surveillance and sousveillance theory wherein is argued how social media platforms are “useful” tools to crowdsource criminal tracking. This overlooks how social media platforms add their own problematic dynamics, such as the convergence of commercial-market based mechanisms in the public task of tracking criminals. Second, this research argues that more attention needs to go out to how top-down and bottom-up practices of surveillance are increasingly becoming interwoven and confronted with each other on social media platforms. To explore how social media become involved and interfere in criminal investigations, the research examines three recent (violent) incidents in The Netherlands that raised widespread media attention and intense public scrutiny: the abuse of a cat with fireworks (January 2014), a gas station’s holder digital hall of shame for gas thieves (May 2014), and a violent attack on a man who was repeatedly kicked in the head (March 2014). The case-studies analyze the tensions between solicited crowdsourcing initiatives by the police and unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts by self-appointed criminal investigators to track criminals on social media platforms. By examining the dynamics arising out of these interactions, the research shows how social media are challenging and transforming the public task of tracking criminals.
Keywords Surveillance – sousveillance – web 2.0 surveillance - social media platforms – law and order – the surveillant assemblage – social media logics - crowdsourcing
1. Introduction
“WANTED: Reward 500 to 1000 euro”. On the first of January 2014 a virtual wanted poster
spread on social media platforms about Luna, a cat, who had been heavily abused with fireworks. It did not take long before the incident went viral and attracted widespread national (social) media attention. The owner of the cat and various concerned citizens started their own independent crowdsourcing initiatives to identify and locate the perpetrator(s). While the police urged people not to take matters into their own hands, the initiatives created intense public scrutiny and a hyper-vigilant manhunt on social media platforms. Consequently, the police were forced to operate in a different way: they needed to adapt their work to the online spaces where citizens were taking matters into their own hands.
In the Netherlands, as in many other countries, citizens have been involved in criminal investigations. Currently, law enforcers actively crowdsource the help of the public on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to track criminals. Standard police procedures such as reporting a crime at a police station or dialing 911 are converging with practices of liking, sharing and tweeting as various societal actors work alongside the police through their own private and public policing on social media platforms. Citizens’ assisting law enforcement is not something new; this has a long history ranging from wanted posters and the mass media to reality-TV shows such as Opsporing verzocht (the Dutch equivalent of
America’s Most Wanted). These are part of longstanding attempts to crowdsource the help of
the public in criminal investigations. Social media, however, signal a new emerging field in which law enforcement and citizens are increasingly confronted with each other.
Instead of co-operating and assisting in solicited crowdsourcing initiatives by the police, citizens start their own independent unsolicited crowdsourcing initiatives on social media platforms to identify and locate criminals. More often than not, these Do-It-Yourself (DIY) bottom-up initiatives result in online manhunts by hyper vigilant citizens. While the
police try to guide these initiatives, it is difficult to control bottom-up crowdsourced manhunts on social media platforms. Furthermore, social media complicate matters by enlarging the amount of actors involved who have different motives to participate in criminal investigations. The dynamics arising out of criminal investigations on social media platforms are more complex than a binary distinction between law enforcement and concerned citizens. Social media platforms are also a place where private commercial actors converge and interfere in the public task of tracking criminals. These actors are both human and technological, as social media technologies/mechanisms both enable and problematically shape interactions between law enforcement and the public.
To explore how social media interfere and become involved in criminal investigations, this thesis critically examines three recent (violent) incidents in the Netherlands that raised intense public scrutiny and attracted widespread national (social) media attention: 1) The abuse of a cat with fireworks: the cat Luna case (January 2014). 2) An entrepreneur’s online manhunt after gas thieves: the Shell-Tausch case (May 2014). 3) The violent incident of a man beating down another man who was repeatedly kicked in the head: the head kicker case (October 2013 - May 2014). The case-studies investigate the tension between law enforcer’s solicited crowdsourcing initiatives and the unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts of self-appointed criminal investigators to track criminals. These solicited and unsolicited crowdsourcing initiatives are increasingly entangled and confronted with each other on social media platforms. This poses some urgent questions for the public task of tracking criminals.
The main question and sub-questions driving this research are: What role do social media platforms play in the public task of tracking criminals? How do social media practices challenge/transform both top-down and bottom-up practices of surveillance? How do citizens/users deploy social media in their own unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts? How do they affect law enforcements own solicited crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals? And
under what circumstances and how should law enforcement try to involve the public in crowdsourcing surveillance tasks to track criminals? By addressing these questions the thesis aims to unravel the complex dynamics arising out of citizens DIY crowdsourcing initiatives on social media platforms to track criminals. Importantly, social media both enable new forms of collaboration between law enforcement and the public, while at the same time also problematically steering their interactions. Consequently, it becomes urgent to provide insights into how social media increasingly challenge and transform the public task of tracking criminals.
2. Social media and surveillance: Theorizing new dynamics in law and
order
The analysis in this chapter is placed in the context of the field of surveillance studies. So far, in current research in the field of surveillance studies a lot of attention has gone out to top-down police surveillance or on bottom-up forms of counter- surveillance, conceptualized as sousveillance. This research is interested in the role of social media platforms in both top-down and bottom- up practices of surveillance. The analysis focuses on the question of how social media affect both top-down and bottom-up practices of surveillance in crowdsourcing criminal tracking.
2.1 Social media and the challenges for top-down police surveillance
What is the role of social media platforms in top-down practices of surveillance by law enforcement? The answer to this question is important as law enforcement is currently expanding its use of new (mobile) technologies and social media platforms to crowdsource surveillance tasks to the public. Law enforcers actively call upon the help of citizens on social media platforms to identify and locate criminals. Top-down initiatives to involve the public in criminal investigations is not something new. Citizens have always been called upon to participate in criminal investigations. This has a long history ranging from Wanted Posters to Reality-TV shows and mass media culture (Eamonn 2008; Greer 2009; Doyle 2006). The mass media are still an important channel through which the police interact with its audience. Nowadays, the range of surveillance technologies available to law enforcement is widening too various other channels, such as apps, weblogs, mobile technologies, web 2.0 sites and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. When looking at theory on top-down police surveillance, it is mostly theorized in relation to negative aspects of power and control (Lyon 2009; Fuchs 2011; Trottier 2013). Practices of surveillance are often
conceptualized in relation to notions on the “Panopticon” or “Big Brother” (Foucault 1997; Gandy 1993; Andrejevic 2011)1. Panoptic theories analyze the more negative implications of the use of surveillance technologies. “Negative” here implies that surveillance is used as a form to exercise power, control and domination of a centralized few (authorities and state-institutions) over the many (Allmer 569). Law enforcements practices of surveillance on social media platforms are also theorized as another way for the police to extend their control over citizens.
Daniel Trottier (2012), for example, argues how social media platforms are a useful source for law enforcers to surveill the digital footprints of citizens. The police can “easily” monitor citizens and gather personal data by taking advantage of citizens/users interpersonal activity and visibility on social media platforms (415). One way in which the police can benefit from citizens interactions on social media platforms, is by involving the public in crowdsourcing criminal tracking. Crowdsourcing is theorized as:
“a process where those externally designated as non-professional engage in a
collaborative project for little to no financial compensation. Large crowds of non-specialized individuals now perform activities that would otherwise be reserved to a skilled few with professional designation.” (Trottier, 2013: 3)
Trottier discusses how in crowdsourcing initiatives by the police, a mass of citizens/users are called upon to surveill/police fellow citizens or suspects on behalf of the police (14). Calling on the help of the public, for example, happens by distributing CCTV surveillance videos’/photos on varying web 2.0 platforms. These platforms include social networking sites
such as Facebook and Twitter, but also official police websites (politie.nl, misdaadinkaart.nl), police apps and blogs. According to William Bogard (2006), the use of electronic surveillance becomes a police power, exactly because it tries to arrests flows of information (101). By
1
The notion of the panopticon by Michel Foucault is an often evoked and re-developed concept in surveillance studies theory. See Thomas Allmer (2011) for a broad overview of the foundations and multiple
actively using social media platforms to involve the help of the public, the police try to capture flows of information from the public that might be valuable for police investigations.
The police in The Netherlands are one of the runner ups in the world when it comes down to the use of social media platforms and also the use of mobile technologies to call upon the help of the public in criminal investigations2. Helene Oppen Gundhus (2006) points to how the mobile phone has become a central tool for police surveillance, “precisely because it has become almost an extension of the body”. She argues that top-down surveillance is made
possible because of the embeddedness of technologies in everyday life (14). Mobile phones, especially in combination with social media, are pervasive technologies in everyday life. They enable law enforcers to gather information about what kind of activities citizens are undertaking in both online and offline spaces. Furthermore, mobile phones also provide a lot of data that can be gathered in police investigations: “Your calls, your emails, your calendar, your photos — not to mention the GPS data embedded in those photos — could make a whole case, in one convenient package”3 (Kaste 2014).
In the pilot project called the “Social Media Recherché Game”, for example, law
enforcers enable citizens to work with their own real cold cases on Facebook and their mobile phones. The game can be played by multiple players. When there is a high-profile case that needs to be solved quickly, it is possible to place that case in the recherché game. The game is not only intended to give the public a more active role in criminal investigations, but it is also developed to keep citizens interested in assisting law enforcement in criminal investigations4. Furthermore, the public can use the game to think out multiple scenario’s which can help to avoid tunnel vision in police investigations. This game is just one of the projects that law
2Link: http://socialmediadna.nl/burgeropsporing_socialmedia/ 3
Smartphone as a useful tool in police investigations: http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/your-smartphone-crucial-police-tool-if-they-can-crack-it#.UzLarNoNGN0.twitter
4The game is developed by TNO in co-operation with law enforcement, because citizens want to co-operate with
law enforcers, especially in sensational cases. Further developments of the game have been postponed. Link: http://socialmediadna.nl/recherche-game/
enforcement works upon in order to develop better insights into how they can use social media platforms to crowdsource surveillance tasks to the public and how to give citizens a more active role in detection work.
In top-down surveillance theory, Trottier (2013) discusses that law enforcement’s use of social media to crowdsource the help of citizens contributes to a “normalization of participatory surveillance”. Trottier argues how social media platforms (and reality-TV crime
shows) contribute to a broader culture of surveillance that spreads to a user culture of crime control (16). The police can take advantage of this broader culture of crime control by integrating user’s activities in their own solicited crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals. By making use of social media platforms, the police are able to both monitor citizens as well as direct citizens to watch over other citizens. Subsequently, social media are seen as useful tools to crowdsource the help of the public.
In The Netherlands, all 26 police forces have implemented their own policy for social media communication and they hired social media experts to design a national twitter policy for law enforcers (first of January 2013, politie.nl)5. On the official website of the national police is explained why social media are such an important source for the police. One of the reasons they discuss, is that social media platforms add personal aspects to police communication. Law enforcers can personally and directly get into contact with local citizens, which can be beneficial in lowering the threshold for citizens to communicate with the police. Instead of providing a general police account, police officers create a personal Facebook or Twitter account to make themselves more accessible and approachable. In this way, law enforcers try to expand their ways of gathering and capturing accessible and direct information.
However, the merging of private and public communication through digital surveillance can also lead to upsetting roles of hierarchies and loosing exclusive control over knowledge directly relevant to police roles (Meyrowitz 167). On social media platforms both top-down and bottom-up practices of surveillance converge. Trottier (2012) discusses that this is an advantage for top-down police surveillance. He argues that the police can take advantage and control over bottom-up surveillance, exactly because social media platforms are an assemblage of top-down and bottom-up surveillance (412). Retaining exclusive control, however, forms a problem.
Bogard discusses that while the police try to retain exclusive control over networked flows of information, the opening up of digital networks of guarded spaces makes it hard/nearly impossible to keep retaining control over policing (111). Furthermore, social media are not just neutral channels through which information flows, they affect “the conditions and rules of social interaction” (Van Dijck and Poell 3). Van Dijck and Poell
(2013) conceptualize “social media logics” to draw attention to the “norms, strategies, mechanisms, and economies” of social media platforms. They argue that the underlying dynamics might be simple to identify, but that it is difficult “to map the complex connections
between platforms that distribute this logic: users that employ them, technologies that drive them, economic structures that scaffold them, and institutional bodies that incorporate them”
(2). Contemporary practices of surveillance on social media platforms do not just consist out of one way or two-way processes: there are multiple (hidden) technological and human agents mediating between law enforcements and the public’s practices of surveillance.
Subsequently, the argument of Trottier (2012) that social media platforms offer the police with a “tremendous resource” of free, fast and real-time responses does not critically take into account the multiple dynamics arising out of social media interactions (412). Social media and mobile technologies are not just useful tools for the police to crowdsource
surveillance tasks to the public as increasingly bottom-up practices of surveillance become confronted with police surveillance. Social media platforms enable citizens to start their own crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals and instead of giving feedback to authorities, the public often acts as “hyper-vigilant citizens” (Koskela 2003; Zedner 2009; Marx 2013).
Citizens are not just willing and co-operative participants in law enforcements crowdsourcing initiatives.
When looking at the question of how social media challenge top-down police surveillance, more attention needs to go out to the complex dynamics arising out of the use of social media in crowdsourcing surveillance task to the public. A top-down perspective alone does not provide the answer of how social media challenge and transform law and order. To move beyond a panoptic perspective and to theorize the multiple dynamics in contemporary practices of surveillance, the analysis turns to the concept of the “surveillant assemblage” (Haggerty and Richard Ericson 2006). The surveillant assemblage focuses the attention on the various actors involved in practices of surveillance.
2.2 Multiple dynamics in crowdsourcing surveillance: “The surveillant assemblage”
One of the distinctive dynamics of social media platforms is that they are a platform where multiple actors converge. As law enforcement is increasingly using these platforms to involve citizens/users in crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals, it is important to take a closer look at who the multiple actors on these platforms and how they affect law and order’s crowdsourcing of criminal tracking. David Lyon (2001), director of the surveillance study centre in Canada, defines surveillance as “any collection and processing of personal data,
whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered” (2). Lyon emphasizes that the gathering of data is a dual process, of both
Haggerty and Ericson (2000) introduce the conceptualization of the “surveillant assemblage” to draw attention to such multiple dynamics in contemporary practices of surveillance. Haggerty and Ericson do not want to limit the analysis to just a number of discrete technologies or social practices and move the analysis beyond a panoptic point-of-view (618)6. They argue that the gaze of the powerful is fractured in a “rhizomatic crisscrossing”: “we are witnessing a rhizomatic leveling of the hierarchy of surveillance, such that groups
which were previously exempt from routine surveillance are now increasingly being monitored” (606).
However, this doesn’t mean that Haggerty and Ericson only focus on a bottom-up or
empowering view on surveillance. Instead they argue that neither the ones in power or surveillance directed at the powerful stands above or outside of the surveillant assemblage: surveillance becomes integrated with a host of other surveillance practices who intersect and converge in various media (616). One of the key aspects of the surveillant assemblage is that it is unstable and does not have any fixed boundaries. Social media platforms also do not have any strict boundaries. The boundaries between who is watching who and for what reason is more complex than just the police surveilling the public.
When looking at crowdsourced criminal tracking by the police on social media platforms, there are also a host of other surveillance practices that come together. One of the flows that converge in crowdsourcing criminal tracking on social media are practices of counter-surveillance. Counter forms of surveillance are not inherent to the rise of the internet or new social media technologies. In the early 20th century with the rise of the so called “new age of freedom” (the pluralization and openness of new TV and radio channels, magazine, and computer based services), audiences already challenged police chiefs and the criminal justice system by forming “counter-definers” (Jewkes 21). Haggerty and Ericson discuss how
6
Haggerty and Ericson want to move beyond a panoptic framework, because new information technologies raise their own questions which transcend the panoptic metaphor (32).
TV and new media allowed the public to scrutinize and monitor the powerful. Another form of counter- surveillance that Haggerty and Ericson point to is those of inexpensive video technologies. Haggerty discusses how these technologies have given rise to inner-city response teams who monitor or videotape the behavior of the police (617-618).
Nowadays, the mass media are still used to form counter-definers. A more recent channel that can be used to counter-surveill authorities is the mobile phone. As discussed, in a top-down surveillance perspective, mobile phones in combination with social media platforms are theorized as a useful source for the police to take advantage of citizen’s interactions. Koskela (2009) argues that “phones are efficiently linked to information flows, making it
quick and easy to circulate images. Among the many consequence of this development is that it creates new links to crime control, evidence gathering and even ad hoc forms of counter-surveillance” (Koskela, 2009: 275).
One of the new forms of crime control arising out of the use of mobile technologies is that citizens can start their own crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals. Both mobile phones and social media platforms, for example, have several apps which enable citizens to co-operate with fellow citizens to crowdsource criminal tracking. One of the apps that enable citizens to crowdsource surveillance tasks is the “Civilant-app”7. The question that rises is how social media platforms both enable and (problematically) shape bottom-up practices of surveillance in the crowdsourcing of criminal tracking.
2.2.1 Social media and the transformations in bottom-up surveillance: “sousveillance”
How do social media transform bottom-up practices of counter-surveillance, also conceptualized as sousveillance? The answer to this question is important as citizens are
7
The app enables the formation of digital neighborhood groups to monitor any suspicious activity in their surroundings. With this app, civilians can reach a lot of fellow citizens in a short period of time. Link: http://socialmediadna.nl/civilant-lokaal-alarm-systeem/ and
http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/5595/Digitaal/article/detail/3573051/2014/01/07/Digitale-buurtwacht-vangt-boeven-met-whatsapp.dhtml
increasingly using these platforms to start their own independent crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals. In bottom-up surveillance theory, the availability of new technologies is theorized as having positive developments for leveling the hierarchy between top-down and bottom-up surveillance (Mann, Nolan and Wellman 2003; Koskela 2009; Marx 2013). Surveilling from below is also conceptualized as “sousveillance” (Mann et al 2003)8. Sousveillance comes “from the French words for “sous” (below) and “veiller” to watch”. Mann theorizes sousveillance as an “inverse panopticon” that mirrors and confronts
bureaucratic organizations9.
Similar to Mann, Bossewitch and Sinnreich (2012) theorize sousveillance as a tool to enhance the ability of individuals to return the gaze towards those in power and collect/access surveillance data10 (232). Mann, Bossewitch and Sinnreich discuss how practices of sousveillance aim at challenging those in power through active agency and strategies of resistance. However, when looking at sousveillance on social media platforms it is not just about actively confronting law enforcement. Citizens are not just leveling hierarchies: they are reversing them. Citizens are able through their own private and public policing on social media platforms, to take over the role of law enforcement. In the case of cat Luna, for example, citizens sousveilled law enforcers to gather valuable information for their own investigations. In the case-studies these dynamics arising out of criminal investigations on social media platforms will be further examined. In opposite to Mann, Koskela (2009) argues that counter-surveillance does not just revolve around active agency, citizens instead “play
8 Mann (2013) conceptualizes sousveillance in two ways, one as a form hierarchy-reversal (citizens watching the
powerful) and the other as personal-sousveillance (wearable surveillance technology, human-centered).
9
Sousveillance stems from Mann’s conceptualization of “reflectionism” (1998). Reflectionism entails, that by distributing panoptic tools to individuals, the gaze is returned to the watchers.
10 Bossewitch and Sinnreich focus on the social dimensions of information-sharing in “information flux models”.
They argue that the “net flow of information” between an individual and a network alter the dynamics of power and knowledge.
various active roles with ‘surveillance’ equipment” (175). Citizens can transform technologies
of control and power in “playful” ways, for example, by creating voyeuristic entertainment11. What is missing in both Koskela and Mann’s discussion is how social media mediate practices of sousveillance. Emphasizing the “playfulness” or empowering/ democratizing potential of new technologies, does not critically take into account how there are multiple structures of power embedded in social media technologies in the first place. Moreover, the concept of the surveillant assemblage exposes ambiguities in bottom-up surveillance. Haggerty and Ericson argue that bottom-up forms of surveillance might challenge surveillance practices of law enforcement; it doesn’t mean that there is a complete democratic leveling of the hierarchy of surveillance (618). Haggerty and Ericson discuss that a range of flows (knowledge, institutions, ideas, people, technologies etc.) and desires now coalesce in the surveillant assemblage who have varying purposes to participate in surveillance. Subsequently, they argue that it is important to analyze more specifically what the distinctive forms of observation entail (620).
Furthermore, the concept of social media logics by Van Dijck and Poell triggers some critical questions about human agency as many state and corporate sectors are incorporating “datafication” strategies for their own purposes of surveillance (10) 12
. The convergence of law enforcement, the public and corporations on social media platforms, is one of the challenging dynamics for criminal investigations.
2.3 Social media and web 2.0 surveillance: Sur- and sousveillance confronted
How do top-down and bottom-up practices surveillance become confronted with each other? And how does this affect the crowdsourcing of criminal tracking? Social media platforms are
11 CCTV clips, for example, are known for being used in daytime talk shows and in reality-TV programs such as
America’s Dumbest Criminals or America’s funniest Home Videos (Haggerty and Ericson 616).
12
Van Dijck and Poell theorize four grounding principles of social media logics (1) programmability, (2) popularity, (3) connectivity, and (4) datafication.
a place of convergence for various actors to become involved in criminal investigations. Currently, there are a lot of initiatives initiated by private actors to enlarge the possibilities for citizens to become involved in criminal investigations. Take, for example, the PrivateCop app. This app allows citizens to use their Smartphone or tablet to register everything that is happening in their neighborhood (image 1). It exists out of a private portal and users can choose whether or not to share their portal with the police. On the website is described that it is an app for citizen participation followed by police participation and not the other way around. The app encourages citizens to take the initiative and gather information together and varying institutions can become involved13. These institutions range from neighborhood watch groups to entrepreneurs and security companies.
Image 1: Screenshot of the PrivateCop app.
This latter point is important as this app not just signals a growing participation in criminal investigations by ordinary citizens, but also the involvement of businesses/companies who are trying to make a profit out of citizens DIY practices of surveillance. Law enforcers are not the
13Possible co-operations can be formed with neigborhoodwatches, journalists, youth workers, companies
etc.PrivateCop app: http://www.privatecop.nl/SitePages/Produktinformatie.aspx
only ones who try to capture networked flows of information for their criminal investigations. Haggerty and Ericson point to how various actors try to capture flows of the human body and abstract them to and from digital environments into pure information. The reassembling of these flows of data lead to the formation of so called “data-doubles” which are subject and
targeted for different purposes, i.e. including the desires for control, governance, security, profit and entertainment (609).
The desires for control and profit are theorized in relation to “web 2.0 surveillance”. “a form of surveillance that exerts power and domination by making specific use of specific
qualities of the contemporary internet, such as user-generated content and permanent dynamic communication flows” (Fuchs 134) 14
. Christian Fuchs (2011) argues that aspects of “exploitation” and “domination” are inherent qualities connected to web 2.0 platforms.
Dominant actor such as companies and state-institutions try to make a profit out of gathering, processing, analyzing, and selling data on web 2.0 platforms (135). This leads to the question of what the implications of web 2.0 surveillance are for practices of surveillance and sousveillance on social media platforms to track criminals.
As Haggerty and Ericson emphasize, the multiplication of sites of surveillance transforms purposes of surveillance: “from viewer to viewer and across institutions, emerging
in unpredictable configurations and combinations, while undermining the neat distinction between watchers and watched through a proliferation of criss-crossing, overlapping and intersecting scrutiny” (29). Various top-down and bottom-up practices of surveillance become interwoven on social media platforms, with different purposes to participate in criminal investigations. This makes it all the more urgent to ask how social media challenge the public task of tracking criminals.
14 Fuchs (2011) makes a distinction between two approaches in web 2.0 surveillance: a critical studies approach
and a political economy approach. The critical studies approach is in line with non-panoptic neutral/positive conceptualizations of surveillance.
In conclusion, in surveillance studies theory a lot of attention is given to either top-down surveillance or bottom-up surveillance, conceptualized as sousveillance. To answer the question of how social media become involved and interfere in criminal investigations, it is not fruitful to either focus on top-down police surveillance or on bottom-up forms of surveillance as the two are increasingly becoming interwoven and confronted with each other on social media platforms through crowdsourcing surveillance tasks to the public. The analysis in the case-studies aims to explore this grey area in which law enforcers and citizens are confronted with each other and it will examine the complex dynamics arising out of criminal investigations on social media platforms.
2.5 Methodology
In each case-study the analysis aims to unravel the complex dynamics arising out of the convergence of top-down and bottom-up surveillance in crowsourcing initiatives to track criminals on social media platforms. The three case-studies, individually, highlight three different dynamics in crowdsourced criminal tracking on social media platforms. This in order to develop insights into the varying ways in which social media become involved and interfere in the public task of tracking criminals.
The first case-study revolves around a violent attack on Luna, a cat, who was heavily abused with fireworks (January 2014). The analysis in the case-study focuses on how citizens deploy social media platforms to track criminals. The question is asked of what the role of social media platforms is in bottom-up crowdsourcing initiatives by the public and how they affect top-down police investigations. The approach is to analyze what users are exchanging on social media platforms, specifically those on the social networking sites of Facebook and Twitter. Based upon citizen’s social/cultural interactions on these platforms and news reports in the media, discourses are identified. The case of Luna is chosen, because it highlights how
citizens use social media platforms to start their own unsolicited forms of crowdsourcing criminal tracking. It provides insights into how social media both enable and shape bottom-up forms of surveillance and how this causes tensions for the ways in which law enforcement operates.
The second case-study explores how Pascal Tausch, a gas station holder deploys social media in his own crowdsourced manhunts to track gas thieves. The question in the case-study is asked of how commercial-market based policing becomes interwoven with bottom-up initiatives to track criminals, what the role of social media is and how it affects the public institution of law and order. The approach is to gather reactions of (commercial) social media platform owners to explore how self-appointed criminal investigation websites are governed and how they interfere in criminal investigations. This case-study is chosen, because it highlights how social media bring the public task of tracking criminals in the realm of the corporate/commercial sphere of private entrepreneurs. It shows how social media does not just confront law enforcers with unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts, but also with private entrepreneurs who are trying to make money out of identifying and locating criminals.
The third case-study is focused on a violent incident in Zwolle where a man was abused and repeatedly kicked in the head. The analysis explores how law enforcers deploy social media to crowdsource the help of the public. The analysis examines the question of how social media change the dynamics in official police investigations and what the challenges are for the police when crowdsourcing the help of the public on social media platforms. The case-study is chosen, because it is exposes problems that law enforcers currently face when they try to involve the public in criminal investigations.
A distinctive dynamic in all three case-studies is the involvement of various societal actors, (private, corporate, public), such as law enforcement, concerned citizens, TV reporters, blogs, and owners of self-appointed criminal investigation website. Social media enlarge the
amount of actors involved in criminal investigations, which complicates the ways in which law enforcers operate. These various actors all add their own particular dynamics to criminal investigations when they converge on social media platforms. Consequently, this research aims to unravel the complex dynamics arising out of Do-It-Yourself criminal investigations on social media platforms to provide insights into how social media increasingly challenge and transform the public task of tracking criminals.
3. Crowdsourced manhunts on social media platforms: The case of cat
Luna
This chapter examines how citizens use social media platforms to start their own (unsolicited) crowdsourcing initiatives to track criminals. The analysis focuses on the question of what the role of social media platforms is in bottom-up crowdsourcing initiatives and how they affect top-down police investigations.
3.1 Introduction
On the first of January 2014 the news spread that in Amersfoort a cat named Luna had been heavily abused with fireworks. Various media reported on the incident: “Animal hangman blows up cat in Amersfoort” (EditieNL), “Cat in Amersfoort dies due to fireworks in behind” (NOS), “Yet again, a cat was horribly murdered by fireworks” (AD), “Police investigates tips after horrible death cat Luna” (RTL Nieuws). Within just a few hours, the news went viral on
social media platforms where it was shared over more than 21.000 times15. The incident received a lot of attention in the media because of the cruelty of the crime (the fireworks were placed in the cats behind). The injuries of Luna were so severe that she was put down to sleep. Luna was not the only cat that was attacked with fireworks around the time of New Years Eve in the surroundings of Amersfoort 2013-201416.
The violent attacks raised a public outrage and intense scrutiny in both the mass media and on social media platforms where the most horrible things were wished upon the perpetrator(s). This intensified when Eric Fluit, the owner of Luna, posted a picture of his deceased cat on his own Facebook page. Fluit reported the attack to the police and he also distributed flyers around his local neighborhood (image 1). Fluit wanted to warn people about
15The cat “Kattie” was also abused with fireworks. The owner of the cat Valerie Blok also used social media
platforms to call upon the help of the public to find the perpetrator(s):
http://www.nieuws.nl/algemeen/20140106/Nog-een-kat-opgeblazen-met-vuurwerk-in-Amersfoort
the violent attack and to call upon participatory surveillance in the hope of finding the perpetrator(s). The picture that Fluit posted on his own FB account was picked up
Image 1: Flyer made by the owner of Luna. Source: RTV Utrecht17
by the mass media and on social media where the algorithmic features of “sharing” and “liking” took flight18
. The incident, however, did not just spark intense reactions: it also raised unsolicited crowdsourcing initiatives by concerned citizens in society who took it upon themselves to track the person responsible for the violent act. A closer look needs to be taken at these bottom-up initiatives for Luna on social media platforms, because they affect the ways in which top-down police investigations take shape.
3.2 Hyper-vigilant citizens policing on social media platforms
“Both traditional surveillance and voluntary vigilance may have consequences which are
either good or bad, or anything between. Shedding light on the splinters warrants conceptualizing ‘a re-imagined relationship between police and authorities and the communities they serve’” (Koskela 152; Huey et al 160). Hille Koskela (2003) argues that the
differences between authorities and the public are becoming less clear, as new forms of scrutiny and surveillance are spreading. When looking at the use of social media platforms in
17Link: http://www.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/1112844/dierenbeul-blaast-kat-op-in-amersfoort.html 18
. Link: http://www.hartvannederland.nl/nederland/utrecht/2014/online-klopjacht-op-daders-mishandeling-poes-luna/
crowdsourcing initiatives for Luna, there are also some “splinters” that need to be shed light
on. One of these splinters arises out of the bottom-up crowdsourcing initiative on Facebook called “#Helpdedaderspoeslunavinden” (image 2 and 3). The FB page is not created by the
owner of Luna, but by private concerned citizens. The FB page was open to everyone and it attracted a lot of media attention, because hyper-vigilant citizens took it upon themselves to actively co-operate with fellow citizens to hunt down the perpetrator(s).
Citizens, for example, called upon each other to surveill social media networking sites based on clues/tips that fellow citizens provided about potential perpetrator(s). Meanwhile, law enforcement also closely monitored the FB page to surveill citizens’ investigations. The police stated: “We started an investigation, but you can see that it now starts to live its
Image 2 and 3: Left, a picture of Luna, posted on the owner’s Facebook page. On the right a screenshot of the Facebook page for Luna (HelpFindThePerpetrators#PoesLuna).
own life as a result of the Facebook page. That is understandable, because there is nothing civil about what happened, thus we can talk of a lot of sentiment” (RTL Nieuws)19. The crowdsourcing initiatives on the FB page seem to provide the police with a valuable source to gather information, because within just two days more than 10.000 tips came in.
In a top-down perspective on surveillance, citizens bottom-up crowdsourcing initiatives on this page would be theorized as initiatives where law enforcement can take
advantage of (Fuchs 2011; Trottier 2013). The FB page, for example, enables law enforcers to gather fast and real-time information about potential perpetrator(s). Trottier (2012) emphasizes how social media surveillance provides the police with a useful source of information20. With the public policing on social media platforms, information can be gathered and exploited. First, Trottier argues that the police can even take advantage of how “social media users are identifying and shaming suspected criminals. Sites such as Facebook
are remarkably effective platforms for citizens to persecute each other, following a broader online culture of sharing and interacting” (411-412). According to Trottier, citizens policing and scrutinizing fellow citizens/users on social media platforms, is beneficial for law enforcers to generate valuable information.
In opposite, in the case of Luna, law enforcers are cannot just “easily” take advantage of user’s bottom-up surveillance practices. In a news report on cat Luna, for example, is indicated how “cops are reading along, but find it difficult to gather valuable information due
to the amount of messages placed on the FB page”21. Not only the amount of message, but also the type of messages about the attack forms a problem for law enforcers. As Gary T. Marx (2013) argues in his article “The Public as Partner? Technology Can Make Us
Auxiliaries as Well as Vigilantes”: “data aren’t information, and with vast collection volumes, the ratio of signal to noise is far from useful” (57). Both the mass media and social media
focus upon reporting about the vigilant aspects, i.e. the noise that the online manhunts cause. On the FB page for Luna, for example, varying citizens started to name and shame the wrong people. In several animal abuse cases that raised a public outrage in The Netherlands, citizen’s not just confined their manhunts to social media spaces. Potential perpetrator(s) were
also tracked and harassed in offline spaces22. This forced law enforcers to closely monitor the
20 Trottier proposes in his article “Policing Social Media” a theoretical framework to make sense of the
sociological relevance of social media policing.
21
Link: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/binnenland/politie-onderzoekt-tips-na-gruwelijke-dood-poes-luna
interactions of citizens on the FB page for Luna as a sort of online security guards. Instead of gathering valuable information from the FB page, they also had to monitor the page to make sure that things were not getting out of hand.
A second problem in Trottier’s discussion is when he argues how law enforcers can use social media to re-direct bottom-up crowdsourcing activities in various directions of the law by promoting user involvement (415). In the case of Luna, law enforcers also try to re-direct citizen’s information towards the police by being active on social media platforms.
Varying police officers tweeted and posted messages on their own Twitter and Facebook accounts about Luna to solicit user participation. They actively approached the public to co-operate in finding the perpetrator(s). Interestingly, varying police officers started to tweet about the incident of Luna, not objectively but with a subjective judgment about the perpetrator(s). Leo Dortland (press and media co-coordinator for the police Mid-Netherlands), for example, tries to solicit the public’s assistance in top-down police surveillance by playing
into collective emotions of anger in society.
Dortland uses his Twitter account to not just “objectively” call upon the public’s help
for valuable information, but he also explicitly states his own personal (vigilant) opinion about the incident with Luna (image 4). ). The leveling of boundaries or hierarchies is part of a developing police approach in crowdsourcing criminal tracking in the Netherlands. On the website of the National Police is stated that tweeting law enforcers are part of a social media strategy that law enforcement is currently working on23. The social media strategy entails that law enforcers create their own Facebook or Twitter accounts to keep the public up-to-date about certain cases. By actively communicating with users/citizens on social media platforms the police can lower the threshold for citizens to communicate and co-operate in police investigations. One of the potential negative consequences of this strategy is that previously
23
GeenStijl is a provocative Dutch (commercial) weblog. http://www.politie.nl/nieuws/2013/februari/26/00-social-media-steeds-belangrijker-voor-politie.html
clear categories can break down when law enforcers engage with the public on social media in crowdsourcing criminal tracking (Koskela 151). Koskela argues that this can cause moral binaries between good and bad to disappear. In this way, Dortland’s use of social media can be seen as contributing to a disappearing boundary between objective police investigations and socially/emotionally driven investigations by citizens.
Image 4: Leo Dortland, law enforcer, states that he thinks that the person responsible for the violent act is a coward. Help find the perpetrators. Source: https://twitter.com/LeoD_112/status/418459258880286720
So, in the case of Luna, the convergence of law enforcers with citizens on social media platforms is not just a positive advantage for law enforcers. Moreover, the leveling of boundaries between the police and citizens on social media platforms even has negative consequences for police investigations. When taking a closer look at the tweet of police officer Dortland, for example, there are some “splinters” that negatively affect law enforcements interactions/relation with the public. In relation to the surveillant assemblage, Haggerty and Ericson note how data doubles circulate, become modified and distorted in ways that are often unintended or unknown to its referent” (614). Law enforcement’s use of social media also raises several unwanted / unforeseen consequences.
The platform GeenStijl.nl, for example, places Dortland’s tweet in the context of an online manhunt24. The report on GeenStijl emphasizes how Dortland is absolutely right about catching the “cowards” who attacked Luna. Dortland’s subjective opinion about the
perpetrator is interpreted by GeenStijl as if Dortland encourages an online manhunt after the perpetrator(s). Even though, Dortland expresses in his tweet that he wants the public to report valuable tips to law enforcement by calling 0800-7000, his tweet also becomes part of unsolicited bottom-up crowdsourced manhunts that the police cannot simply control.
So, when Trottier argues that the police are able to take advantage of crowdsourced manhunts by posing and intervening as peers on social media platforms (412), it does not take into account how social media blur the lines of control. Moreover, posing as peers or fellow concerned citizens, doesn’t mean that citizens also view law enforcers as fellow
peers/concerned citizens. Furthermore, not only do social media practices in this case complicate top-down surveillance by the police, but also bottom-up practices of surveillance for Luna.
Eric Fluit, the owner of cat Luna, did not expect that his FB post would lead to intense public outrage and the manhunts that followed. Fluit used social media to warn his local neighborhood about the incident and that the perpetrator was still on the loose. Trottier notes how it is easy for investigators to log on and directly gather evidence on social media, because of the fact that a lot of information is not protected by privacy settings (417). Not just law enforcers, but citizens can also do the same thing. The creators of the FB page for Luna, for example, were able to take over a photo of the deceased Luna that was posted on Fluit’s FB
page. This resulted in a lot of attention for the publicly accessible FB page.
Fluit asked the creators of the FB page to take it down. Fluit wanted to end the “hype” and the “fear” of people who were taking matters into their own hands. In an interview, Fluit
(anonymously) discusses how he was shocked of the national media attention and the public outrage his call for participatory surveillance caused (RTV Utrecht)25. Fluit wanted to prevent more online manhunts and he wished that the perpetrators were to be punished in the normal way, i.e. not by an online manhunt on FB. Fluit was also afraid that the perpetrators would not turn themselves in, due to the public outrage. The creator of the FB page states: “I want to emphasize that this page is put up with the aim of finding that one ‘golden tip’ where law
enforcement can act further upon. It is not the intention to organize one big ‘private’ manhunt”26
.
In opposite, this is exactly what the crowdsourcing initiatives by the public turned into. Interestingly, the statement came before things were getting out of hand. By describing in the description of their FB page, how it is not their intention to organize a manhunt, the creators already anticipated the negative consequences of calling upon the help of the public in their own crowdsourcing initiative. Likewise, the mass media already reported about an “online manhunt”, even before varying actors started their own criminal investigations on the
social media platform. Several articles report about online manhunts, such as the AD who states: “Online hunt after animal abuser Amersfoort is opened”27. Both the mass media and social media here highlight the vigilant aspects of citizen’s investigations.
There are however more aspects to vigilance, than just heated emotions. Koskela notes how “The ‘vigilant audience’ may have multiple roles and multiple motives for their watching” (170). More dynamics (and varying motives) are at work on the FB page for Luna
than just concerned citizens with the motive of catching the perpetrator(s). Similar to Koskela, Haggerty and Ericson (2001) argue in their conceptualization of the surveillant assemblage how multiple connections and flows in the surveillant assemblage, allow some to direct or
25
Taking the page down does not mean that it is completely disappeared: parts of it can still be found online. Interview with Fluit: http://wwww.rtvutrecht.nl/nieuws/1113016/
26 Link: http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2014/01/moordenaar-kat-luna-moet-worden-opgepakt 27
Link: http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Nederland/article/detail/3570703/2014/01/02/Online-jacht-op-kattenbeul-Amersfoort-geopend.dhtml
govern over others with varying motives to do so (609). In the surveillant assemblage of social media policing for Luna, the motives are not that clear. A closer look needs to be taken at the FB page to question what the motives behind the unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts are as they are able to use social media to affect the ways in which further criminal investigations are problematically shaped.
3.3 Catching the perpetrator(s) or…?: Web 2.0 wanted posters and conflicting motives
“Wanted 500/1000 euro reward”. One of the dominating (unsolicited) crowsourcing initiatives on the FB page for Luna are the “web 2.0 wanted posters” (image 5). On these
virtual wanted posters, rewards are promised for the one who provides valuable clues about the perpetrator(s) of the violent attack against Luna. The online wanted posters are made by
Image 5: Web 2.0 wanted posters. Source:
the organization “TimeForCleanUp” (TFCU). The wanted posters feature detailed
information of horrific animal abuse and they reward citizens with a 500/1000 euro tip if they provide valuable clues for locating and identifying the perpetrator(s). The reactions and comments that these posters solicit are intense: “BASTARDS, Let’s hunt them down and torture them the same way as they did with Luna”28 (image 6). This is just one of the many
Image 6: Comments in reaction to the virtual wanted poster for cat Luna on the FB page of SDN.
exemplary comments and reactions that can be found in the comments under these wanted posters. While the mass media reports refer to the wanted posters, they do not discuss who is behind the initiative and what their motives are. When taking a closer look at these web 2.0 wanted posters and the motives behind them, there is a grey area about what these posters actually provoke.
The web 2.0 wanted posters are distributed by the foundation “Stop Dierenleed Nederland/Stop Animal Abuse Netherlands” (SDN). The foundation, in co-operation with the
private organization TFCU, spread the wanted posters online (image 5). The wanted posters circulated on social media platforms and they were prominently displayed on the public FB
28 This user comment is posted on the FB page of Stop Dierenleed Nederland:
https://www.facebook.com/StopDierenleedNederland/photos/a.321202041333166.75060.320676391385731/480 393372080698/?type=1
page for Luna. The website of SDN lists several animal abuse cases in which they co-operate with TFCU to solve animal abuse cases with the help of the virtual wanted posters29. As “transparent” as SDN is presenting itself on their website, they do not give any information
about TFCU. There is no contact information listed on the website and TFCU does not have its own official website.
In media reports on Luna, the wanted posters of TFCU and SDN are highlighted, but they do not report any background information about TFCU (or SDN). What can be found is a publicly accessible FB page where they are labeled as a non-profit organization30. They describe themselves as “people from the porn industry fighting animal abuse, animal porn and crushing porn”. It becomes unclear of how and why the-co-operation with SDN started (and
where the money for the wanted posters comes from). It is interesting that there is a lack of information in the mass media and with the police about SDN and TFCU’s wanted posters,
while they raise several problems for police investigations.
Lyon and Trottier (2011) argue how users are often unaware that they are being surveilled on social media platforms such as Facebook by the police. Similar, Fuchs (2011) argues that web 2.0 surveillance is highly intransparent for its users (145). In opposite, however, individual user themselves can be very much aware that they are being monitored. Moreover, users also find ways to make use of the non-strict boundaries of social media platforms. Users have varying “tactics of use” (De Certeau 1984) that deploy in order to use
social media platforms for their own various surveillance purposes. Ron Visser, founder of SDN is one of those users who deploy social media surveillance to direct attention towards his own foundation.
SDN is a non-profit organization that recently started in 2013 and is currently trying to create more attention towards the existence of the foundation. Ron Visser, founder of SDN
29
“Stop animal abuse in the Netherlands”: http://www.stopdierenleednederland.org/
states in his business plan that he wants to generate as much publicity as possible to create more brand awareness31. By co-operating with TFCU, SDN is not just simply releasing online wanted posters to crowdsource surveillance, but also in trying to generate more attention to the foundation itself32. SDN is more than aware of how to deploy social media to become involved in police investigations; they are even able to center the information about the case of Luna towards their own foundation and establish themselves as an important source for police investigations.
Ernst Ameling (a psychologist), for example, is interviewed in the mass media about the incident with Luna. Interestingly, Ameling not mentions that citizens should report valuable information to the police. Instead he says: “People who have the golden tip are
requested to notify the FB page. It is horrible of the dead cat, but the problem probably lays deeper than one dead cat. Action is required!33”. Ameling recommends that information about the perpetrator(s) should be reported to the FB page for Luna where SDN and TFCU promise to hand in valuable tips to the police. Instead of directly going to the police, the information first flows towards SDN.
As discussed the owner of cat Luna asked the creators of the FB page for Luna to take it down. Fluit also asked TFCU to stop their actions, but even with the removal of the FB page, SDN and TFCU were able to play a continuous (vigilant) role in further criminal investigations34. One way in which SDN and TFCU continued to play an important role in investigations, was by playing into collective emotions of anger and disgust that people uttered on social media platforms. They did this by building upon what Marx (2013) terms as “unsettling categorical suspicion”. Marx argues how new means of communication and
31 Link business plan: http://www.stopdierenleednederland.org/anbi.html
32 In an interview that I had with Ron Visser, he said that no one contacted Stop Animal Abuse to ask or collect
the money rewards as offered on the web 2.0 wanted posters.
33 In the first line of the online news report in “De Standaard”, it reads: “This sadist should be immediately
removed from society”. Link: http://www.dagelijksestandaard.nl/2014/01/moordenaar-kat-luna-moet-worden-opgepakt
publicity about (potential) threats generates more support and willingness in citizens to become involved in security matters: “Contemporary means extend the passive requests of the old “Wanted!” posters for fugitives – many requests are more open ended and vague, describing events that might happen, seeking input on suspicious circumstances and people”
(58). SDN and TFCU created a discourse of a “dangerous individual” by emphasizing in their web 2.0 wanted posters how the perpetrator(s) may attack more animals.
Likewise, the mass media also report about a dangerous individual on the loose. The television program EditieNL, for example, featured a report about the possible perpetrator(s) in the case of Luna35. They state: “Experts are clear: animal abuse is a sign for more criminal behavior to come”. In the item they feature experts ranging from a psychologist to claims in
scientific studies. In theorizing social media logic, Van Dijck and Poell (2013) indicate how social media logic is increasingly entangled with mass media logic. They discuss how the mass media present themselves as neutral platforms, while they in fact operate as filters (4). By staging experts, some opinions are voiced over others.
One of the experts that are brought to the foreground in the EditieNL item is yet again psychologist Ernst Ameling. In front of the camera, Ameling urges that it is important that the perpetrator(s) are found as soon as possible. Not just for seeking justice and prosecution, but also for the protection of society as there is a dangerous, sadistic behaving individual on the loose who might strike again. However, the unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts are not the only problem that SDN and TFCU cause for law enforcements investigations. Another problem is that SDN and TFCU also direct vigilance towards law enforcements investigations.
3.4 From tracking perpetrators to attacking law enforcement
35 The news report uses the incident of cat Luna to establish a connection between animal abuse and criminal
behavior. They state that research shows that 40 percent of criminals in jail were also involved in animal abuse. Link: http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/editienl/kattenbeul-crimineel-de-dop
“When law enforcement is not prepared to take on such cases, you know that law enforcement is a useless, dispensable and money wasting institute and people will take matters into their own hands” (TimeForCleanUP36
. Interestingly, the vigilance in the crowdsourced manhunts is not only directed at the perpetrator(s): the wanted posters also raise scrutiny towards the ways in which law enforcement operates. One of the main reactions and comments on social media platforms and in mass media reports revolve around the “lack of trust” that citizens have in law enforcements job to catch the perpetrator(s) of Luna. The documentary “We are all cops” (Zembla March 2014)investigates the question of why people
are taking matters into their own hands and what the dangers are of civic participation in criminal investigations37. They bring forward the issue of a “lack of trust” in law and order. Visser (founder of SDN) is also interviewed in the documentary. Visser is introduced in the documentary as a civilian who partakes in criminal investigations, because “law enforcers do not take up the job to do so”. The interviewer says to Ron “but this is actually a task for the police”. Visser answers that they are not commando groups who chase animal
abusers, but that they simply want to help the police with identifying and locating the perpetrators. Visser emphasizes that the police often state that “they are too busy” and
therefore he feels that his own initiatives can contribute to police investigations38.
What is interesting here is not just the answer of Visser, but the comment made by the interviewer: “but this is actually a task for the police”. The convergence of SDN’s bottom-up
initiatives with those of the police on social media platforms turns it into a different question: “In how far is it still only a task for the police?” Crowdsourced manhunts such as those by
SDN on social media platforms shift the boundaries between what is and what isn’t a police task. Therefore it is important to not just focus on the hyper-vigilant aspects in crowdsourcing initiatives. It is not enough to just establish that citizens are taking matters into their own
36 https://www.facebook.com/pages/TimeForCleanUp/414378691989833?fref=ts 37
Documentary “We are all cops” (Zembla): http://zembla.incontxt.nl/seizoenen/2014/afleveringen/06-03-2014
hands. More attention needs to go out to how social media problematically entangles bottom-up and top-down surveillance in crowdsourcing criminal tracking.
3.5 Conclusion
The analysis in this chapter focused on the question of how bottom-up unsolicited crowdsourcing initiatives on social media platforms affect top-down criminal investigations by law enforcement. First, the analysis established a problem with theorizing bottom-up crowdsourcing initiatives as being useful sources for police investigations. This overlooks how the converge of top-down surveillance and bottom-up surveillance on social media platforms cause tensions in police investigations. Second, the analysis focused on the challenges that bottom-up surveillance by citizens on social media platforms causes for law enforcement. Initiatives such as the web 2.0 wanted posters by SDN and TFCU, are able to stage themselves as important sources in police investigations. More critical attention should go out to how such initiatives come into being in order to get a better grip on the ways in which these unsolicited crowdsourced manhunts affect solicited crowdsourced criminal tracking by the police.
In this case-study attention was also raised towards the socio-cultural dynamics arising out of the users interactions on social media. One of these is the hyper-vigilant aspects and public outrage that the news about Luna caused. When top-down and bottom crowdsourcing initiatives converge on social media, these hyper-vigilant aspects are just one distinctive dynamic in crowdsourced manhunts on social media. The following chapter will focus upon another challenging dynamic in the convergence of top-down and bottom investigations on social media platforms, i.e. the convergence of commercial/market-based actors in the public task of tracking criminals.
