British Intelligence Agency Joins Twitter
Social media can do many things, maybe even help keep the world safe.
For most of us, Twitter is a place to find news articles, track trending events, and listen to voices ranging from funny to authoritative on a range of topics. But for intelligence agencies tasked with keeping the territories in which they operate safe from harm, Twitter is very often used as a primary source of clandestine intelligence.
Twitter for Surveillance
With so many tweets being sent out every minute and a broad usership that anyone can monitor, networks like Twitter have for a long time been the perfect place for intelligence agencies to lurk in the background, gleaning what they can by tracking various influential users and hashtags. However, that all changed last week when Britain’s intelligence agency Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) came out of the shadows and joined the network with its first Tweet: “Hello world”.
“We want GCHQ to be more accessible and to help the public understand more about our work, while also reaching out to the technical community and adding our voice to social media conversations about technology, maths, cyber security and other topics where we have a view,” said an agency spokesperson. Though its American counterpart, the CIA, was already on the network (and greeted the new account with a tweet: “Welcome to Twitter @GCHQ”), GCHQ is the first British intelligence agency to join.
Even though they are somewhat late to the party, GCHQ’s move tells us a little bit about how intelligence agencies view the network, both above board and below. According to The Telegraph, the agency will “be used to highlight events, publications, news blogs and opinion pieces,” but a spokesperson was quick to add: “Some things have to stay secret – sorry – so we won’t be providing intelligence updates or giving away tradecraft.”
Twitter for Public Relations
So, is GCHQ’s decision to join the network a mere PR stunt, or will they actually use the account as an important part of their intelligence gathering mission? Twitter users certainly found humor in the agency’s late joining of the Twitter club, with many saying that it’s highly likely that GCHQ had not only been monitoring tweets for some time, but private messages too. One user tweeted “Exposed as a massive apparatus of state surveillance? Concerned about your public image? Start a twitter account!”, while another said: “Welcome to Twitter @GCHQ . It’s been nice having you listen to us all this time… :)”
Then came the news that Twitter has blocked US spy agencies from buying what is called “bulk data” from a software firm known as Dataminr. The Guardian reported: “Until now, US national security agencies, including the FBI and CIA, had been able to parse treasure troves of Twitter data through software from Dataminr, the New York-based analytics company in which Twitter owns a 5% stake. Agents could enter key terms such as “Isis” or “jihad” and receive alerts for relevant posts, people familiar with the process said.”
Twitter for Twitter
There is little doubt that America’s UK counterparts were keen on using similar tactics when it comes to monitoring social media activity, but in this act Twitter seems to have put its foot down, with a spokesman saying “We have never authorized Dataminr or any third party to sell data to a government or intelligence agency for surveillance purposes. This is a longstanding policy, not a new development.” Putting a division between what spy agencies can and can’t do on the site is an important line to draw in the age of government surveillance, and in light of that divide, perhaps GCHQ thought it was best to bring some of its Twitter practices out of the shadows and into the light.