Recently, social media sites
have been making changes to their platforms that are favorable to online researchers.
Facebook is making changes to the system which will make it easier to locate
users’ timelines. Tumblr has made it easier for users to tag one another and
search for tagged content. Also, Vine has implemented a
web-based interface with user profiles. All of these changes will assist online
researchers in more efficiently gathering information on persons of interest.
Facebook
Screenshot of the warning
users see when logging into Facebook
In December 2012, Facebook announced it was going to retire the “Who can look up my
timeline by name?” setting using a phase out approach. In October 2013,
Facebook reminded the public that this change would be implemented
soon. This month, Facebook has ramped up their alerts about the change on both
the site and via email. However, they do not have a date for expected full
implementation.
This change is very important
to follow for online research and analysis. Current restrictions often force us
to look at related parties’ Facebook accounts or scrape the link from another
site in order to locate individuals who have removed themselves from Graph
Search. Once this privacy setting is fully removed, investigations on Facebook
will be streamlined. We will be able to locate all users via the Graph Search
interface.
Tumblr
Screenshot of Tumblr search results for Game of Thrones language creator dedalvs
On January 14, the Tumblr
staff added a post telling users that they should start tagging other users
in their posts. Previously, users would communicate by using tags for topics. The
search functionality topics worked well, but the search functionality for other
blogs/users was limited. Tumblr has recently upgraded their search features to
include a user friendly interface and search filters. Now, researchers can
search for content related to the user of interest by taking advantage of the
usernames embedded in the post.
Vine
Screenshot of Batdad’s Vine
profile
On January 3, Vine announced
the addition of Vine on the Web. Previously, users
were restricted to finding content for Vine users on the mobile application or
by finding links to vines embedded in other social media sites. During the
creation of Vine on the Web, Vine added online profiles for each user. Profiles
list profile information and show the users’ vines and revines (reposts). These
profiles will now allow analysts to examine Vine content in one place instead
of piecing it together using data fusion techniques.
The Future
Social media is a dynamic
system and will never stop changing. Keeping up with these developments is
necessary to success in the long run. As investigators, our time is precious.
Even the smallest alterations to the social media landscape can present us with
new challenges, and this information is vital for us to fine tune our best
practices.
