Dr Ben Collier, STISInfluence Government - the UK government and police use of social media adverts to change our behaviour

In a context of multiple overlapping crises, novel and emerging forms of harm, and the legacy of more than a decade of austerity, UK police forces are turning to an emerging mode of law enforcement, which we call influence policing. This uses the technologies of the Internet platforms to conduct digital influence campaigns within the UK in the name of crime prevention. These campaigns use sophisticated targeting of messages to directly ‘nudge’ behaviour and shape the culture of particular groups. They began in counter-radicalisation as part of the UK’s Prevent programme, but have since moved into a range of other policing areas, from online child abuse to domestic violence, knife crime, and cybercrime. By targeting people based on the words they use on Twitter, interests picked up from browsing and purchasing behaviour, fine-detail location, or Google searches, these police campaigns aim to use behavioural psychology to prevent crime. Examples include: adverts for drug counselling services appearing on the mobile phones of young men from deprived areas in their own dialect and accent when they walk near a hospital; fear-based adverts from the UK Home Office using detailed behavioural profiles to deter asylum seekers in Calais from attempting a Channel crossing; NCA nudge ads deterring children using Google to search for illegal services; and counter-terror adverts displaying on the phones of people walking within a set radius of high-security buildings; among a wide range of others. We discuss the ethical and theoretical implications of this new mode of algorithmically-enabled policing using analysis of a dataset of more than 12,000 adverts and in-depth fieldwork with Police Scotland’s dedicated strategic communications team.

Bio: Ben's research sits at the intersection of Criminology and Science and Technology Studies, drawing theory and methods from both. He studies how digital infrastructures become sites where power of different kinds is exerted. Using qualitative, computational, and statistical approaches, his research falls into three strands.  The first involves large-scale ethnographic studies of digital infrastructure, such as my research on the Tor network (the subject of a book with MIT Press: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262548182/tor/). The second focuses on how digital technologies and infrastructures become used for crime and resistance, drawing on a mix of ethnographic and AI/'data science' approaches. The third looks at digital infrastructure and state power, including in-depth studies and evaluations of law enforcement interventions (such as FBI takedowns) and a recent project looking at the use of digital influence campaigns by law enforcement and government to shape the behaviour and culture of the public and achieve preventative policy goals. He draws on a range of theoretical perspectives in his work, most prominently Stuart Hall's cultural studies scholarship and Susan Leigh Star's approach to studying the social worlds of digital infrastructure.