Morton County, N.D.’s Reaction to the Standing Rock Check-in Push on Facebook
(AP Photo / James MacPherson)
The Sheriff’s Department maintains that it has not used Facebook as a surveillance tool against the Dakota Access Pipeline protesters.
Scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed, you might notice something unusual—dozens of your friends using the website’s “check-in” feature to announce that they’re at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
Standing Rock is the site of ongoing tensions between protesters and law enforcement over the Dakota Access Pipeline, a project that demonstrators argue threatens water resources and sacred lands.
The check-in trend began after this post went viral:
The Morton County Sheriff's Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. SO water protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at Standing Rock, North Dakota, to overwhelm and confuse them. This is concrete action that can protect people putting their bodies and well-beings on the line, that we can do without leaving our homes. Will you join me in Standing Rock?
The origins of the post aren’t immediately clear, but the Standing Rock Facebook page, and the Standing Rock, ND page have been flooded with tens of thousands of new check-ins.
And, likewise the Morton County Sheriff’s Department has been flooded with requests for an explanation. But, according to Donnell Preskey, the department’s public information officer, there is no substance to this viral Facebook request.
“We are absolutely not monitoring the check-ins,” Preskey told Route Fifty in a phone interview Monday morning. “It’s just the new rumor of the day.”
While Morton County Sheriff’s Department has used Facebook as a communication tool throughout the Dakota Access Pipeline protests—they used the platform to livestream a press conference and have shared relevant photos—they maintain that surveillance of check-ins is not a facet of their overall strategy.
Quinn Libson writes for Government Executive’s Route Fifty.
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