Social Computing and the Law

"This innovative book sets itself at the crossroads of several rapidly developing areas of research in legal and global studies related to social computing, specifically in the context of how public emergency responders appropriate content on social media platforms for emergency and disaster management. The book - a collaboration between computer scientists, ethicists, legal scholars and practitioners - should be read by anyone concerned with the ongoing debate over the corporatization and commodification of user-generated content on social media and the extent to which this content can be legally and ethically harnessed for emergency and disaster management. The collaboration was made possible by EU's FP 7 Project Slandail (# 607691, 2014-17)"--

"Microblogging systems and social networking systems, sometimes referred to as types of social computing systems, generate enormous amounts of data that often contain specific information about persons, events, and geographical locations. During exceptional circumstances, this data can, in principle, be invaluable; for example, in deploying scarce resources in times of emergency for saving lives, rescuing and rehabilitating people, and protecting property. Microblogs and social networking pages have become a mainstay of data dissemination in the public space and are heavily used by both citizens and authorities in times of crisis; they have been used, for example, by police forces to disseminate and seek information about missing people, and by hospitals seeking blood. Twitter carries the first messages of victims of atrocities (Paris 2015, Berlin 2016, London 2017 and Manchester 2017), Facebook is used to find missing relatives. Vast quantities of personal information floods microblogs and social networking pages: this data helps authorities to deploy resources where the need is greatest and yet this data can be used in whole sale surveillance as well. Social computing systems are now part and parcel of our interactions with others in good times and bad"--