SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The FBI is looking for outside contractors to monitor social media for potential threats, setting up a possible conflict with Facebook and other companies over privacy.
Last month, the FBI said it is
soliciting proposals
for a social media “early alerting tool” in order to identify possible threats while making sure that privacy and civil liberties considerations are taken into account. Such a tool would likely violate Facebook’s ban against using its data for surveillance.
The contract solicitation and the potential clash
was first reported
by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. It was posted before the most recent mass shootings once again prompted calls for social media companies to do more to detect such threats.
Facebook declined to comment. Twitter did not immediately respond to a message for comment.
