Sue Cowley, an education expert who runs training for schools, tweeted her response to the records she had been sent under her name this week: “Excuse my language but WTAF [what the actual fuck] are the DfE doing spending taxpayer money conducting surveillance on critics of government policy on here?”
Disgraceful. Reminds me of another scandal this time the Labour run Council of Bristol that was caught spying on parents of children with special educational needs (SEND) because they criticised the council.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-64404875.amp
WTF is wrong with these people?
I’ve worked in local government comms in the past. It’s pretty obvious that councils will want to know what people are saying on social media. Apart from anything else yoyu don’t to be blind-sided by real problems with policy that are causing people problems - social media is a great way of spotting issues and addressing them. Don’t see anything particularly wrong in not inviting someone to talk to your conference who has been extremely opposed to the policy you are pushing.
Clearly in the case above the whole cross-referencing twitter and Facebook accounts to dox anonymous posters is dodgy - but certainly, in the past I’ve found anonymous posters claiming to be residents suffering from a housing problem, actually being a political operative of another party. You could see how a councillor could end up saying "look who are these people saying their kids are being damaged?’ and some comms person jumping to find out.
There’s trying to understand your constituent’s concerns and then there is spying on your constituent’s wedding photos. I dunno, maybe local government is totally comfortable with that 🤷? And get this… because these people wanted better special educational needs provision from their council. Heavens above the gall of these people, right?
Which is why I said it was dodgy - it clearly is.
However - imagine you are getting a lot of flack from an anonymous Twitter account - it’s fairly obvious that you are going to be asked who this person is. Seeing if they use the same handle on Facebook is a pretty obvious first step. I’m not quite sure what ‘private Facebook wedding photos’ means in this context - the photos will either have to be shared with ‘Everyone’ or shared in a group that the council offer is also a member of. So, private how?
Usually the first step in this situations is to try and get the resident some help - if they have a particular problem, you will normally ask them to DM you the details so you can escalate to the right people. I spent about a week chasing up for some poor person who was having a grim time trying to get a repair done - and that’s pretty typical. If it is an anonymous campaign group without specific complaints, yes you are going to be curious as to who they are.
I’m absolutely not saying that what the council did here is right - an enquiry is absolutely warranted and they may have been bang out of order. But I’m saying it may not simply be a descent into fascism.