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Soteria Intelligence has just launched a new social media threat detection service. The startup is launching amidst growing public awareness of social media threats. Soteria uses algorithms to detect threatening social media behavior.
Soteria defines social media threats as actions or posts on social networks that could “cause harm to an organization’s employees, physical locations, or proprietary information,” said CEO Aaron Schoenberger. “Threats range from students saying they’re going to ‘shoot up’ their school on Twitter to death threats aimed at executives, to employees leaking confidential information on social networks.”
Social media threats have come to the top of the public consciousness recently because of a rash of ugly remarks appearing on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook. Recently, a women posted a video of herself on YouTube getting unpleasant catcalls while walking around Manhattan, for it she received numerous death threats and harassing remarks on YouTube and Twitter; a recent school shooting in Washington state was proceeded by a series of ominous threatening Twitter remarks; and the terrorist state ISIS has actively been using social media to intimidate people, including sending death threats to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo for shutting down its accounts.
While social media threats encompass a broad list of activities Schoenberger said two threats come to the top as the most prevalent in 2014.
“Our research indicates that the single most common social media threat in this day and age is threats aimed at schools. Every few days there’s a story in the news about another school being locked down due to threats that were voiced on social networks,” said Schoenberger. “The second most common social media threat, especially in the past six months, is terrorist activity for both recruiting and propaganda purposes.”
For a long time much of online bad behavior was tolerated as simply Internet trolling. Unfortunately, deviant users have become accustomed to posting without any consequences. Social media threats and harassment have gotten out of hand and increasingly reflect real life intentions. As more of everyday life is taking place online, social media companies, users, and other organizations are now taking such behavior more seriously.
Soteria is a blend between a consulting service and technology platform. The company uses its technology to monitor conversations for clients that vary from high-net-worth individuals to corporations to law enforcement agencies.
Its Los Angeles headquarters feature a command center manned by social media analysts and former law enforcement personnel. The company said it has been developing its threat detection software for two years prior to its recent launch.
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