'Minority Report' is already here
“Harnessing social media to help solve and predict crime”
The 2002 film, Minority Report, is set in 2054. However, here in 2022, we’re already burdened with much of the “predictive” technology featured in the film. For example:
Personalized advertisements
Facial and optical recognition
Voice-controlled homes
Driverless cars
And yes… pre-crime policing
Case in point: The Los Angeles Police Department was caught using social media to collect information about individuals, groups, and activities. A tech startup called Voyager Labs helps law enforcement agencies like the LAPD “harness social media to help solve and predict crime.” Yes, you just read the words “predict crime.”
“Pulling information from every part of an individual’s various social media profiles, Voyager helps police investigate and surveil people by reconstructing their entire digital lives – public and private,” explains Johana Bhuiyan and Sam Levin in a Nov. 17, 2021, Guardian article. “By relying on artificial intelligence, the company claims, its software can decipher the meaning and significance of online human behavior, and can determine whether subjects have already committed a crime, may commit a crime or adhere to certain ideologies.”
Among many other invasive tactics, Voyager’s data collection involves:
Archiving a targeted person’s deleted social media friends and posts
Monitoring the person’s contacts and all their social media activities
Conducting real-time “sentiment analysis”
Investigating “ideological solidarity”
Analyzing (supposedly) private messages on social media platforms
Creating fake accounts to connect with “suspicious” groups or individuals
It will never cease to amaze me how people so easily surrender their rights and privacy — allegedly for convenience and safety [sic]. This is why the current battles against mandates and digital tracking are so crucial and relevant. No matter where you stand on any given issue, surely you recognize that sovereignty and privacy benefit everyone. Without that, you are powerless.
Spoiler Alert: Neither the government nor the corporations that own it ever have your best interests at heart. You can learn to accept this reality now or have it driven home when you get falsely charged with a “pre-crime” in the future.
Mickey Z. is the founder of Helping Homeless Women - NYC, offering direct relief to women on New York City streets. To help him grow this project, CLICK HERE and donate right now. And please spread the word!
Let me begin by noting that organized crime is an integral and important part of the global political economy and involves collusion between the global Mafia, the various police forces, the CIA (and other intel agencies) and the critically important financial system. Serious about reducing large scale crime? Eliminate the CIA and prosecute the bankers.
I fear that the "crimes" the government will be predicting will primarily be the new "crimes" identified (vaguely) in upcoming domestic terrorism legislation which will basically label dissent and protest as terrorist crimes. This is yet another example of the current and ongoing restructuring of society to facilitate totalitarian control by the elites. Folks would be well advised to avoid using social media. And never forget that at this point in time the primary function of government is to administer society consistent with elite goals and objectives. The elites are deadly serious about their restructuring agenda.