How Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) Collection Impacts the Public
Information is everywhere. Personal information, such as where we live, work, and the places we frequent, is all available online. Pictures of ourselves, our family members, and our pets, and data on our ethnicity, religious beliefs, and political affiliations are often easily accessible. Additionally, people who are active on social media may disclose in-depth information about themselves, such as medical information or demographic information, often without any awareness of doing so.
An example of this in recent events is Meta-owned Instagram enabling a map feature that allows users to see where other users are physically located in real-time (Nehrer 2025). This geographic disclosure via social media has sparked privacy concerns for many users, prompting Attorney Generals to ask for Meta to roll back the new feature (Henderson 2025). There were many concerns about how this location disclosure could impact the safety of people, especially of children who may be targeted by criminals, including pedophile sex offenders. Other security concerns regarding such location-based information disclosure would include military service members who are stationed overseas or the National Guard who are activated for domestic operations.
The sea of information available on social media provides a data-rich environment for governments, businesses, criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries to mine for various uses. The practice of analyzing this information - known as Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) collection - when used for safety-related purposes, can be helpful in providing valuable information on crime, public health concerns, and acts of terrorism (Omand, Bartlett, and Miller 2012). In theory, SOCMINT collection can enhance crisis response, effective intervention, and even the prevention of potentially damaging events and occurrences.
Examples of organizations that have incorporated forms of SOCMINT into their security strategy include the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point (“Pyrra Tech Platform 2022), Jewish synagogues and schools (Nahmias 2021), along with defense corporations, finance institutions, and technology companies (“Babel Street, SAP in Partnership for Open Source Intelligence” 2015). Having information on sentiment, planned actions, and networks can provide a multi-dimensional view of the security of the organization (Ho, Kaarst‐Brown, and Benbasat 2018).
With all this information at our fingertips, one important question hasn’t been answered: How does Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) Collection impact the public?
What does the literature say about SOCMINT Collection?
SOCMINT collection takes on many forms in the modern world. Elements of this approach can be found in human resources, healthcare, government, management, marketing, finance, national security, and many other sectors. While SOCMINT is being deployed in a variety of ways, we have very limited data in terms of how this impacts the people connected to the organizations or communities in which the collection process is focused.
According to Rahat and Nadeem (2025), social media monitoring of employees by their employing organizations has resulted in employees feeling surveilled, violated, and has reportedly increased anxiety. Employers may justify their actions of employee monitoring due to risks related to insider threats; however, it is important to recognize that such actions are not without consequences to the organization’s workforce.
For the U.S. military to utilize such social media monitoring of service members may not be viewed as intrusive as monitoring the social media of veterans, contractors, or general civilians. When they enlist or commission, U.S. service members sign a Standard Form 86 (SF-86), which acknowledges that the Department of Defense can review social media content as part of the security clearance decision process. Hurrell, Scholarios, and Richards explored the generation-based impacts on employer social media monitoring, and revealed that such practices result in multiple points of tension for people of all ages, including Generation Z Digital Natives, and were often viewed as privacy violations (2017).
In Zimbabwe, research into the effects of state-sponsored digital surveillance of citizens yields some insights into impacts on public perceptions (Stevens, Fussey, Murray, Hove, and Saki 2023). Awareness of social media monitoring altered and resulted in self-censorship, less online activity, reduced trust, and feelings of intimidation (Stevens et al. 2023). Scholars have termed this the “chilling effect” (Stevens et al. 2023), capturing how surveillance technologies may discourage individuals from sharing information, expressing themselves online, or generating new content.
In the situation in Zimbabwe, the government’s intent was to reduce social activism in the region, in an attempt to reduce pushback related to government initiatives. In a democracy such as the United States, citizen-led resistance to proposed legislation and actions is baked into our foundational principles in the form of the First Amendment to the Constitution. While a country such as the US may utilize SOCMINT collection from a security standpoint with the objective of keeping its citizens safe, it is important to realize that such actions may backfire in terms of how safe or unsafe this makes the public actually feel (Vrhovec and Fujs 2023). This perception could change in response to many external variables, such as upticks in acts of terrorism (Vrhovec and Fujs 2023).
Bad actors, foreign adversaries, and terrorist groups may also engage in SOCMINT collection to find targets for disinformation campaigns, which have the potential to greatly alter and warp public perceptions about many topics. According to Ohu and Jones, disinformation delivered via social media targeting adolescents has been observed to distort perceptions and manipulate their beliefs (2025). People may not think they are vulnerable to manipulation via social media; however, research indicates that the population is much more susceptible to disinformation narratives than we like to think (Starbird 2019). While not a direct correlation to public perception of SOCMINT collection, this does provide additional insight into how what is occurring in the digital realm has the potential to influence our psyche, beliefs, and subsequent actions.
Concerns About SOCMINT Collection
At this time, there is very limited framework in place regarding how social media monitoring can or should be utilized by organizations. While information gleaned from the social media monitoring of healthcare-related content in China has provided medical researchers with helpful data on adverse reactions to drugs and patient safety concerns (Hu, Han, Zhou, and Liu 2019), there are concerns about how this data should be utilized (Hunter, Gough, O’Kane, McKeown, Fitzpatrick, Walker, McKinley, Lee, and Kee 2018). Additional exploration regarding how the collection of social media data would impact whether or not an individual would utilize drugs from a pharmaceutical company that engaged in this proactive manner, or trust a public health institution that made recommendations based on user data collected from social media, has not been explored in depth. According to Hunter et al., user privacy settings, anonymity and confidentiality, authentication, and rapid pace of changes in social media platform usage are all considerations when exploring these implications (2018).
Other concerns with SOCMINT collection, especially when it is done from a law enforcement or national security standpoint, are the potential for inaccurate biases to mislead or misunderstand content and result in negative outcomes for those being monitored (Roussey 2024). This could lead to rights violations and dangerous situations for those identified incorrectly as potential threats by government agencies engaged in SOCMINT collection. Public awareness that such activities were occurring could spark mass distrust in public institutions, such as local police, government employees, or elected officials.
An example of this is the negative response to public awareness that the United States Air Force Academy has solicited a social media monitoring program that includes non-consensual monitoring of cadets, civilian employees, contractors, and civilian visitors at the academy (Carless 2024). According to Petersen and Rønn (2019), such initiatives result in altered public perceptions about the organization’s identity and questions regarding subsequent partnerships or collaborations needed to conduct such operations. Just because SOCMINT collection is being hailed as an action to support increased citizen security, does not mean the public views such actions this way; instead, they may view it as direct infringement on their freedoms and rights (Petersen and Rønn 2019).
A final concern in the literature is the seeming lack of a consistent legal and ethical framework that guides SOCMINT collection. While some scholars have argued that existing privacy laws and constitutional protections offer partial safeguards, many such as Petersen and Rønn (2019) and Vrhovec and Fujs (2023), have also contended that these are, in fact, outdated for the realities of the digital age. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) does provide a somewhat stronger protections for individual data rights than those in the United States, where it is argued that fragmented state-level laws leave significant gaps (Hunter et al. 2018). This disparity in the legal environment raises important questions about how citizens may perceive trust in government and corporate actors, especially in cases where SOCMINT is used for purposes that may extend beyond immediate security concerns. Because there are no broadly accepted or agreed-upon norms or international standards, both practitioners and the public can face uncertainty, which increases the likelihood that SOCMINT collection is viewed as intrusive or even abusive.
How SOCMINT Collection Impacts Real People in the Real World
For a long time, people have viewed the digital world and the physical world as two separate spheres; however, hyperconnectivity through the Internet has ushered in a true multi-domain environment that has invaded many aspects of our lives, including the cognitive space and emotions (Bitkina and Park 2021). The heavy use of social media has been shown to affect mental processes such as attention span, memory retention, curiosity for novelty, and even how people can perceive information (Shanmugasundaram and Tamilarasu 2023). The effects of the online world are increasingly impacting the realities of our physical world. SOCMINT collection was hypothesized to result in alterations to how people’s mental perceptions, emotional state, and social behavior may be altered as a result. Additionally, it is hypothesized to impact how people view organizations, social media platforms, and the perceptions of trust, safety, and their community.
SOCMINT collection is not without effects on people. When employers conduct this on prospective employees or current employees to determine if they are a good fit for a job or to detect insider threats, this impacts the people’s emotional state, as evidenced by increased anxiety and also their perceptions of the organization doing the collection (Rahat and Nadeem 2025). An employee who posts the company’s intellectual property on social media presents a threat to the organization. For example, an employee who shares proprietary information online can create a security risk, while another who is using social media to disparage leadership may damage an organization’s reputation. Generally speaking, organizations entrust information of varying levels of privilege to employees, and thus, they want to make sure the people who have access to this proprietary information are trustworthy. Some employing organizations believe people’s digital footprint of online engagement provides valuable insights into their trustworthiness and also culture fit to the organization. The action of collecting SOCMINT intelligence on employees of the organization does directly impact the people’s perspectives on the organization.
When the U.S. Air Force Academy attempted to contract SOCMINT collection on people geographically affiliated in some way with the academy – as cadets, faculty, staff, alumni, or visitors – the public responded by expressing negative sentiment towards the academy and its leadership (Carless 2024). This initiative was regarded as highly intrusive, unnecessary, and also irresponsible usage of public funds. Additionally, cadets, service members, and employees of the military service academies are held to very high standards of conduct.
Questions were raised across the public as to what had happened to the expected ethical bedrock of which the Academy was supposed to be selecting people for and holding them to those standards. Was the Academy paying a vendor to monitor people affiliated with it because there had been a great lapse in ethical conduct and professionalism across the USAFA community? Or was the Academy leadership inept at influencing, inspiring, and motivating cadets, faculty, and staff to model the standards of conduct that have been in place for almost 100 years? Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on aggressive monitoring of personal social media accounts of people affiliated with the academy was a rather heavy-handed and detached way of handling misconduct in an organization that claims to operate in accordance with an Honor Code.
While some may argue that the U.S. military has more of a right to review social media content of people due to their responsibility with threat detection, the pushback expressed on this proposed SOCMINT collection initiative focused on the public’s perceptions of potential rights infringement. However, after military base shootings, questions are often raised regarding the terrorists’ social media behavior and online publications leading up to the catastrophic, criminal event. It seems that the public expects governments to collect SOCMINT on terrorists and criminals, but not on law-abiding citizens. Due to the sheer volume of information available on digital public forums such as social media, it is virtually impossible to only collect data on specific individuals and not on other members of the public who are not intended to commit acts of terror, but are active on the same online platforms.
When considering SOCMINT collection as a resource to support security initiatives, it is important to consider the many impacts it can have on members of the public, along with their general lack of knowledge regarding how SOCMINT collection works from a technical standpoint and what such initiatives may mean in terms of everyone affiliated in some way – geographic proximity, as an employee or service member, and as an alumni or former employee or veteran. Social media is a public forum, and thus, collecting information across such digital platforms may include reviewing content generated by members of the public that extends beyond the individuals included on a terrorist watch list or involved in an active law enforcement investigation.
Countries outside of the United States have a broader latitude by which they engage in SOCMINT collection on people within their borders and their adversaries. In the example of Zimbabwe, the government did sponsored SOCMINT collection on citizens that were regarded as threats to the government (Stevens et al. 2023). This type of digital surveillance did impact public perceptions on a variety of elements, including views, emotions, well-being, and also in social behavior (Stevens et al. 2023). Additionally, those under surveillance tended to reduce their online activity and to shift to different platforms or modes of communication in response to SOCMINT collection (Stevens et al. 2023). While SOCMINT collection does not necessarily cause direct physical harm as a method of intimidation, such as assault or violent interrogation processes, the awareness of the government engaging in this level of monitoring was enough to impact how people interact, live, feel, and what they pursue or avoid. These observations demonstrate the far-reaching impacts SOCMINT collection can have on people who are being monitored using this method.
The actions of an organization in engaging in such initiatives do impact how people view the organization itself (Petersen and Rønn 2019). This alteration in public perception could include a decline in trust and a decrease in their willingness to work for the organization or recommend it to others as a trustworthy resource. As observed in Zimbabwe, the intent of SOCMINT collection was to minimize certain behaviors, such as activism from people, and to promote compliance with government initiatives and leadership (Stevens et al. 2023). This type of state-sponsored censorship, coercion, oppression, and abuse of power is a probable fear of members of the public resistance to SOCMINT collection, even when it is hailed as an element of a modern security plan.
In the case of healthcare research, SOCMINT collection has been proposed as a potentially valuable resource that can support public health data collection in a cost-effective and broader manner (Hu, Han, Zhou, and Liu 2019); however, there are many concerns regarding the validity and quality of this data and also ethical considerations regarding consent of social media users to participate in such research (Hunter et al. 2018). Due to the proliferation of the Internet, the concept of individual privacy is being continually tested and re-evaluated. If someone posts a health-related matter on social media to inform their friends of recent medical developments or support needs, should this be collected by researchers and used to support their projects without the express consent of the original poster? If government and research institutions do collect SOCMINT for public health purposes, it is likely that awareness of such initiatives would impact the public’s perceptions on the institution itself, especially in the realm of whether or not they are a trustworthy entity.
The ends do not necessarily justify the means when it comes to SOCMINT collection. Just because a medical research project utilizing SOCMINT could result in improved outcomes for the public, does not mean the public would view this initiative as helpful. It is highly likely that a considerable amount of people would view such endeavors as intrusive and potential violations. To avoid further violations, members of the public may stop posting personal information on social media, they may not trust the institution as a reliable source of medical information, and they may opt to not receive medical care that was informed by such intrusive research or is delivered from the institution. These effects could result in further harms to public health in terms of election refusal to follow public health guidelines to limit contagious disease spread, receive preventative screenings, or to comply with treatment options.
Many different organizations are engaged in SOCMINT collection at present, including businesses, governments, and nonprofits (“Babel Street, SAP in Partnership for Open Source Intelligence” 2015). Each organization may have a different purpose for SOCMINT collection. For example, a business may want to optimize the online shopping experience of website visitors, and they conduct SOCMINT collection to optimize digital product placement, promotion displays, and online advertisements that are tailored to the prospective customers based on their social media behavior and user-generated content. Governments may have very different goals when it comes to SOCMINT collection, such as monitoring threats of terrorism and investigating crimes. SOCMINT collection is a versatile technology that can be engineered to be applied to a variety of objectives and goals. People may not have the same negative reaction to SOCMINT collection used to enhance their online shopping experience, as they will to awareness of a state-sponsored organization monitoring their online content for potential affiliations or support of terrorist activity.
Conclusion: SOCMINT Collection Impacts the Public
SOCMINT collection can be a very effective tool to utilize to support organizational objectives; however, it is a relatively new technology with many considerations that are continually evolving as we observe how capabilities expand and how it impacts people. The objectives driving the use of SOCMINT can be varied – from enhancing profit margin to counter terrorism measures. Understanding the many potential applications of SOCMINT collection in the Digital Age is an important element of awareness for organizational leaders considering deployment of such a powerful and relatively novel technical tool.
What happens online has the potential to impact people across multiple areas of life, including their perceptions and their actions. When organizations engage in SOCMINT collection, such activities are regarded in a variety of ways and can result in negative impacts, such as shifted views in trust related to the organization, along with damage to the brand and reputation. People who are made aware of SOCMINT collection occurring are not observed to offer overwhelming support for such initiatives; instead, they tend to consider such initiatives as intrusive violations of privacy and freedom.
In order to mitigate the risks of SOCMINT collection, it could be recommended that organizations adopt transparent data use policies, as these ensure that the public understands what is being collected and why. Additionally, independent oversight and auditing can assist in identifying and reducing analytical bias, while incorporating anonymization and minimization practices further protects individual privacy while allowing aggregate insights into user behavior. Furthermore, embedding clear consent frameworks can help maintain trust, especially in areas such as public health, while training analysts to recognize cultural and generational differences in online behavior may reduce misinterpretation. Finally, building greater public dialogue and education around SOCMINT may help to balance security objectives with democratic values, which could reduce fears of surveillance overreach.
Overall, SOCMINT collection’s value to the public in threat detection and as an element of modern security is becoming increasingly apparent; however, it is advisable that organizational leaders interested in conducting SOCMINT collection are versed in the potential impacts conducting such an operation can have on people directly and indirectly affiliated with the organization.
References
Babel Street, SAP. 2015. “Babel Street, SAP in Partnership for Open Source Intelligence.” Defense Daily International 17 (4).
Bitkina, Olga, and Jaehyun Park. 2021. “Emotional State and Social Media Experience: A Pandemic Case Study.” Sustainability 13 (23): 13311. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132313311.
Carless, Will. 2024. “To Combat Bullying and Extremism, Air Force Academy Turns to Social Media Sleuthing.” USA Today, March 22, 2024. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/03/22/air-force-academy-social-media-monitoring-tool/73035142007/.
De Moya, Jean-François, and Jessie Pallud. 2020. “From Panopticon to Heautopticon: A New Form of Surveillance Introduced by Quantified-Self Practices.” Information Systems Journal 30 (6): 940–76. https://doi.org/10.1111/isj.12284.
Germain, Thomas. 2025. “Instagram’s New ‘Map’ Is a Digital Ghost Town.” BBC Future, August 15. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250814-the-loneliest-place-on-instagram.
Henderson, O. Kay. 2025. “Iowa Attorney General Joins Call for Changes in Instagram Mapping.” Radio Iowa, August 14. https://www.radioiowa.com/2025/08/14/iowa-attorney-general-joins-call-for-changes-in-instagram-mapping/.
Ho, Shuyuan Mary, Michelle Kaarst-Brown, and Izak Benbasat. 2018. “Trustworthiness Attribution: Inquiry into Insider Threat Detection.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 69 (2): 271–80. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23938.
Hosen, Mosharrof, Samuel Ogbeibu, Weng Marc Lim, Alberto Ferraris, Ziaul Haque Munim, and Yee-Lee Chong. 2023. “Knowledge Sharing Behavior among Academics: Insights from Theory of Planned Behavior, Perceived Trust and Organizational Climate.” Journal of Knowledge Management 27 (6): 1740–64. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-02-2022-0140.
Hu, Guangyu, Xueyan Han, Huixuan Zhou, and Yuanli Liu. 2019. “Public Perception on Healthcare Services: Evidence from Social Media Platforms in China.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 16 (7). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16071273.
Hunter, Ruth F., Aisling Gough, Niamh O’Kane, Gary McKeown, Áine Fitzpatrick, Tom Walker, Michelle McKinley, Mandy Lee, and Frank Kee. 2018. “Ethical Issues in Social Media Research for Public Health.” American Journal of Public Health 108 (3): 343–48. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304249.
Hurrell, Scott A., Dora Scholarios, and James Richards. 2017. “‘The Kids Are Alert’: Generation Y Responses to Employer Use and Monitoring of Social Networking Sites.” New Technology, Work and Employment 32 (1): 64–83. https://doi.org/10.1111/ntwe.12085.
Nahmias, Omri. 2021. “SCN Launches a National Jewish Security Operations Command Center.” Jerusalem Post, December 16.
Nehrer, Jennifer. 2025. “Instagram’s Map Feature Raises Privacy Concerns among Some Users.” NBC News, August 7. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/instagram-maps-feature-raises-privacy-concerns-some-users-rcna223706.
Ohu, Francis, and Laura Jones. 2025. The Intersection of Cyberwarfare, Social Media, and Adolescent Self-Esteem: A Forensic Cyberpsychology Analysis. Reading: Academic Conferences International Limited.
Omand, David, Jamie Bartlett, and Carl Miller. 2012. “Introducing Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT).” Intelligence and National Security 27 (6): 801–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2012.716965.
Petersen, Karen Lund, and Kira Vrist Rønn. 2019. “Introducing the Special Issue: Bringing in the Public. Intelligence on the Frontier between State and Civil Society.” Intelligence and National Security 34 (3): 311–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/02684527.2019.1553365.
Pyrra Tech Platform. 2022. “Tender Documents: T471543912.” MENA Report, March 26.
Rahat, Hamnah, and Sadia Nadeem. 2025. “Social Media as a Workplace Panopticon: The Development and Validation of Social Media Monitoring by Workplace Contacts Scale.” PLoS One 20 (3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0319429.
Roussey, Benjamin. 2024. “Privacy Concerns in Policing Through Social Media Surveillance.” ST Magazine, April 30. https://st-magazine.com/privacy-concerns-in-policing-through-social-media-surveillance/.
Shanmugasundaram, Mathura, and Arunkumar Tamilarasu. 2023. “The Impact of Digital Technology, Social Media, and Artificial Intelligence on Cognitive Functions: A Review.” Frontiers in Cognition 2. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203077.
Starbird, Kate. 2019. “Disinformation’s Spread: Bots, Trolls and All of Us.” Nature 571 (7766): 449. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02235-x.
Stevens, Amy, Pete Fussey, Daragh Murray, Kuda Hove, and Otto Saki. 2023. “‘I Started Seeing Shadows Everywhere’: The Diverse Chilling Effects of Surveillance in Zimbabwe.” Big Data & Society 10 (1). https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231158631.
Vrhovec, Simon, and Damjan Fujs. 2023. “Are Perceptions about Government and Social Media Providers Related to Protection Motivation Online?” International Journal of Cyber Behavior, Psychology and Learning 13 (1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJCBPL.324085.