For many US citizens at this particular moment in time, smartphones have become a valuable tool in the pushback against ICE, in hopes that surveillance of their actions will result in ICE agents reducing their use of force during raids to detain people. In some cases, video recording and what could almost be viewed as verbally shaming these agents in public has resulted in them leaving the scene of attempt to detain someone. Almost like they know they weren’t supposed to be doing it in the first place.

These sorts of recordings, as well as images related to the same subject taken with smartphones we carry with us every day, are being spread all across social media. Making them more of an important thing to have around these days. The sharing on social media shouldn’t be surprising. It’s become a main form of spreading news on current events. Situations that might otherwise get little media attention from big outlets and networks.

Outside of social media, apps like ICEBlock and similar offerings have made their way onto app platforms this year. These apps have served as a way for citizens to share active locations of ICE agents. All in hopes people could avoid those areas. Like users of Waze do when they crowdsource information on speed traps. But smartphones and social media, however much they’ve been useful to the average user, are double-edged sword admist these problems with ICE.

ICE and the Trump administration are also able to use smartphones and social media for surveillance

As much as both smartphones and social media have been useful for citizens to share what’s happening, they’ve also been a method for ICE and the Trump administration to use surveillance against the populace. This unfortunate two-way street has and never likely will be a closed-off or one-sided beneficial piece of technology. That is to say, now more than ever, people should be careful about what they say or post online.

Whether or not thoughts of political dissent is something that enters your mind on a daily basis or crops up in conversations with friends, it’s one thing to think about that stuff and discuss with people close to you in person or in personal chats. It’s another thing to outwardly share those thoughts with the world at large onine.

Be careful about what you share online

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t talk about or share these things. Just that sharing these current moments require more contemplation. The launch of a new app that shares real-time locations of ICE activity to alert others, an opinion about ICE and what they’re doing, a video of excessive force during a detention. All of these should all be done with forethought and tact. As ICE also have their own tools.

As noted by Kyle Chayka in The New Yorker, ICE has been seen using digital tools created by Palantir to gather information on people it’s detained. These tools scan social media accounts, government records, and bio-metric data of detainees. At the same time, the Trump administration has put pressure on app stores like Google Play and the Apple App Store to remove apps that work against ICE and its goals. ICEBlock and similar offerings have all been pulled down. Other apps, such as Eyes Up, went live on September 1 of this year to archive recordings of excessive abuse and abductions by ICE, only to be pulled down in early October.

So far there haven’t been any widespread (let alone any that are known) instances of people being targeted for what they post about the current situation with ICE raids and the Trump administration’s use of them online. That doesn’t mean that these things won’t happen, however. The further it gets into Trump’s second term, the more that things happen that people probably wouldn’t have believed just a few years ago.

The post Smartphones and social media are the double-edged sword amidst problems with ICE appeared first on Android Headlines.

The device features two hinges, allowing it to function as both a standard smartphone and a larger tablet when unfolded.