The social media ‘background check’ on gun purchases: Considerations for social media surveillance policies that aim to reduce violence
Written by: Thalea Torres, Irena Trifunovic and SAFElab team
New York lawmakers are writing proposed legislation that would give law enforcement the power to review three years of an individual’s social media activity and internet search history before granting permission to purchase a firearm. This piece of legislation is in response to recent mass shootings, where the assailants’ social media posts revealed clear and inciting hate speech — though almost always in hindsight. While the goal of this legislation is to create stricter gun laws that aim to ultimately reduce firearm fatalities, it bears implications on constitutional rights and brings to question how policies like this will be applied across demographic groups.
The Pittsburg Tree of Life shooter, for example, shared hate speech on Gab, a social networking site. A policy like this could have intercepted the shooter’s legal purchase of firearms by granting authorities the power to scan his social media posts, presumably uncovering his intent and denying a firearm sale. However, the suggested policy does not require a mandatory review of social media, but rather provides authorities with the power to decide who warrants a deeper background check. This raises the question of who authorities would choose to surveil and why? In “Stop and Frisk Online,” Dr. Desmond Patton and colleagues theorize everyday racism in digital policing, arguing that targeted social media policing negatively and disproportionately affects communities of color; in a similar way that offline over-policing in these same communities does. Dr. Patton’s work shows that biases and disparities present in an offline context show up in online surveillance as well. Society’s many isms could result in marginalized communities receiving the greater brunt of this policy, while the hate speech of white nationalists continues to warrant less preventative action.
Does social media surveillance help eliminate tragedies like mass shootings, or does it create a social media to prison pipeline for Black and Brown youth in neighborhoods with high rates of violence? How does this policy ensure that the decision to review a potential buyer’s profile is administered equitably? Once at the stage of review, how will the parameters of hate speech be defined, and who would be part of the decision making process to determine that definition? These questions aim to speak less on the permission to buy a gun, but rather on how policies surrounding policing and social media can have disparate impacts.
