A Facebook status meme went viral on Monday, in which users were encouraged to “check-in” to Standing Rock, North Dakota in order to impede the Morton County Sheriff’s Department’s efforts to monitor the online activities of water protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Online users were encouraged by the meme to falsely check into Standing Rock on Facebook, and then to post a second post to clarify to confused friends the user’s true intentions:
“I think we underestimate how often Facebook is used by law enforcement,” New York student Keshia Pendigrast told VICE News. “So if my small check-in confuses a sheriff somewhere, I’m happy.”
Pendigrast reported that over 65 of her friends had checked into Standing Rock on Monday morning. It’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of people all across the country have also checked-in.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Dept’s official position is that they are not using Facebook check-ins to gather intelligence. They also noted to Snopes that if they were to use geolocation tools to track mobile devices, remote check-ins would not fool them.
There is no doubt that law enforcement comb social media for incriminating material and monitor communications.
There is no solid line between “organizers” and “others”- this is a movement, not an organization. There are many camps and points of contact, we can only verify that it did not originate from the Sacred Stone Camp FB page. We support the tactic, and think it is a great way to express solidarity.
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