美国国家公共电台 NPR Groups Worry About Impact Of Police Moves To Block Social Media

Groups Worry About Impact Of Police Moves To Block Social Media 

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It's become a real question, now that people often use real-time connections like Facebook live to video a video, to record and stream standoffs with law enforcement, when and whether should police be able to pull the plug on your social media. NPR's Martin Kaste has been looking into it.

MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE²: People are talking about this right now because of the case of a woman named Korryn Gaines who was shot and killed earlier this month by police in Baltimore County, Maryland. Before she was shot, there was a standoff, with the cops outside her apartment trying to get her to surrender. And during those hours, she was online. This is one of the videos that she posted on Instagram where she's talking about the standoff with her 5-year-old son.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

KORRYN GAINES: What's happening right now? Who's outside?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: The police.

GAINES: What are they trying to do?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: They trying to kill us.

KASTE: What's got people's attention here is the fact that, during the standoff, the police got Instagram's parent company, Facebook, to suspend her account. They say they did this because her social media connection was making the standoff worse. It was distracting her from negotiations³, and some of her online followers⁴ were telling her not to give up.

SID HEAL: In some cases, the person is looking for an audience.

KASTE: Police tactics experts Side Heal says outside communications can complicate⁵ a standoff, a problem that was easier to fix in the old days.

HEAL: Usually, we would surround the house and then call the guy on his own phone, say come on out. And that prevented him from talking to anybody else as long as we just kept the line open. And if it got really bad, we just literally⁶ cut the wire at the house.

KASTE: These days, the police can use a special web page provided by the social media company where they can make an emergency request to take down somebody's account. For cops, this is no different than the old practice of cutting a phone line. But to Rashad Robinson, it is different. He runs Color of Change, an online racial justice organization. And he says live social media are much more than just a line of communication.

RASHAD ROBINSON: As the movement around police accountability has grown, it's been fueled by video evidence, the type of video that gives us a real insight into what's happening and creates the narrative⁷ and rebuilds the narrative for people to understand.

KASTE: He says, imagine if police in Minnesota had blocked the Facebook live video of the aftermath of the police shooting of Philando Castile earlier this summer. There wouldn't have been nearly the same kind of public reaction. And, in fact, that video did disappear for a while. Facebook blamed a technical glitch⁸. Robinson says tech companies need to establish clear principles for when and how they let the police take people offline.

ROBINSON: Facebook and these other platforms have to decide what they're going to be. Are they the phone company or are they a news agency? And they can't sort of pick and choose depending on sort of the time of day.

KASTE: His group and a long list of others have sent Facebook a letter demanding an explanation of the Korryn Gaines takedown and clear rules for the future. Facebook says it does have clear rules. It responds to emergency requests from the police when there's a risk of death or serious injury or imminent⁹ harm to a child. But the company won't discuss specific cases, and activists¹⁰ say it's leaving itself a lot of gray area where it can judge cases as it sees fit. Meanwhile, live social media, especially video, just keeps getting more important to civic¹¹ life. Kate Klonick studies this at Yale Law School.

KATE KLONICK: What's really interesting, I guess, about the live video feed is how quickly people are going to feel entitled to it and like it's part of their civic rights.

KASTE: But, of course, social media is not a legally defined right - at least not yet. Martin Kaste, NPR News.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

4 followers   

追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件

参考例句：

• the followers of Mahatma Gandhi 圣雄甘地的拥护者
• The reformer soon gathered a band of followers round him. 改革者很快就获得一群追随者支持他。

5 complicate   

vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂

参考例句：

• There is no need to complicate matters.没有必要使问题复杂化。
• These events will greatly complicate the situation.这些事件将使局势变得极其复杂。

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

8 glitch   

n.干扰；误操作，小故障

参考例句：

• There is a glitch in the computer program somewhere.这个计算机程序中的某个部分有点小问题。
• It could just be a random glitch that can be solved by restarting the machine.可能只是一个小故障，重新启动主机就能解决了。

9 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

10 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 civic   

adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的

参考例句：

• I feel it is my civic duty to vote.我认为投票选举是我作为公民的义务。
• The civic leaders helped to forward the project.市政府领导者协助促进工程的进展。