Samaritans Radar

Samaritans Radar was a Twitter-based service created by the digital advertising agency Jam for the British emotional support charity Samaritans. It was intended as a way to inform users when their Twitter contacts were potentially in need of emotional support. The app scanned Twitter for key phrases such as "help me", "hate myself", mentions of being depressed or needing someone to talk to and then sent an email to that user's friends.[1] Samaritans suspended the Radar service following widespread criticism and a petition asking the charity to discontinue the service.[2]

Logo of Samaritans Radar service

Samaritans noted as justification for building the app that there is a link between posting suicidal messages on social media services and committing suicide, and that social media services are used predominantly by younger people.[3]

Reception

Many Twitter users expressed concerns about Radar, arguing that it infringed privacy, that tweets were scanned and collected without consent, and the app allowed bullies, stalkers and internet trolls to target their victims when they were at their most vulnerable.[3][4] According to the BBC, the majority of tweets using the hashtag #SamaritansRadar were negative.[5] A Change.org petition was launched to ask Twitter to shut Radar down and a number of complaints were sent to the Information Commissioner's Office claiming that the app breached the Data Protection Act.[6]

In response to critics, Samaritans allowed users to be "whitelisted", meaning that their tweets would not be scanned by the app. This required sending a direct message on Twitter to be opted out.[7] The service had been activated by 3,000 users as of 4 November 2014.[5]

Suspension

Following this extensive criticism, the service was suspended on 7 November 2014, nine days after being launched.[2] In March 2015 it was announced that the app had been permanently closed and all associated data had been deleted.[8]

gollark: What?
gollark: I vaguely remember the setting being kind of insane.
gollark: If you actually get an AI good (capable and aligned) enough to make that sort of thing work, you won't need to worry about political systems very much.
gollark: I don't really want exciting, I want actually working.
gollark: Self-perpetuating, stable systems good, see.

See also

References
  1. "Samaritans app monitors Twitter feeds for suicide warnings". BBC News Online. 29 October 2014.
  2. "Samaritans Radar announcement". Samaritans. 7 November 2014.
  3. Solon, Olivia (4 November 2014). "Samaritans Radar app criticised for being creepy invasion of privacy". The Mirror.
  4. Lauren O'Neil (5 November 2014). "Anti-suicide app Samaritans Radar could do more harm than good, critics say". CBC.
  5. "#BBCtrending: The petition to block the Samaritans' Twitter app". 4 November 2014.
  6. Susannah Birkwood (4 November 2014). "Twitter users fear Samaritans Radar app breaks the Data Protection Act". Third Sector.
  7. McVeigh, Karen (4 November 2014). "Samaritans Twitter app identifying user's moods criticised as invasive". The Guardian.
  8. "Samaritans Radar update". Samaritans. 10 March 2015.
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