Confusion for a virtual cop – just more unanswered questions and emotions flowing around the edges

“Stop, virtual patrol. The discussion is over, the commentators are at home ”, those images with the alleged police recently appeared on Facebook, in open groups, comments on the portal and elsewhere.

Linked to the news that the officially unveiled idea of ​​a virtual police patrol has been lively debated in public for some time, it may have turned out that such comments were actually written by a virtual officer – the profile uses the police logo Lithuanian and motto “Defend, protect, help”.

It is true that the police assure that the real virtual patrols are not even working yet and will be officially presented, and the fact that the joker is hiding under this profile is not difficult to see after paying attention to a few details: the real name or previous. profile is “Tom Bombadil” JRR Tolkien’s character “The Lord of the Rings”, translated into Lithuanian by Andrius Tapinas – the only friend of the “virtual patrol”. Aside from the profile logo, no one associates the “virtual patrol” with the police – a matching date of birth (or just deliberately joking) – April 20, 1905, and the profile of various politicians and news portals on Facebook.

And this is not the only joker profile recently created: the Side Effect profile, which has been inactive for several years, suddenly became a “kitchen patrol” in mid-March.

However, those jokes are not fun for everyone. For example, in early March, public figure and cultural historian Darius Kuolys raised a series of questions and doubts about the purpose, legitimacy, and operating principles of the virtual patrol. Won’t it restrict human freedoms? So who needs such an idea?

Police in the comments of Internet portals

According to the Deputy Commissioner General of Police Arūnas Paulauskas, who admitted being the promoter of this initiative, initially only three specially trained police officers will do the job and will patrol public Internet spaces, mainly, but not exclusively, Facebook.

“There will also be news, news and advertising portals, where virtual patrols will be carried out after comments on sensitive articles, they will see if everything is in order with comments,” the official warned, emphasizing that the activities will not be limited to the prevention of hatred. speaks.

“It is not a homogeneous space where there is no interference without judicial sanction, but there are places accessible to everyone. A very similar analogy with a simple patrol working on the street: the police must be where violations of the law occur and prevent them or arrest the perpetrators, ”said A. Paulauskas, emphasizing that the patrols will visit, monitor and respond in the Cyberspace. , or public order is not violated, but the emphasis will be on preventive actions, since the algorithms for the operation have not yet been developed, and the police academy is not preparing such virtual officers.

“Indeed, we are learning ourselves and the selection of officials has already been carried out, now we are starting the training process, we are probably guided by some general principles of law and protection of human rights. I do not rule out that we may make some mistakes at the beginning ”, acknowledged the commissioner, noting that Lithuania is already lagging behind in this area: virtual civil servants have been working in the Netherlands, Finland and Estonia for several years.

A threat to human freedoms?

At that time, D. Kuolys saw challenges to people’s freedoms, all the more so since such a police initiative had not been fully coordinated with politicians, although A. Paulauskas reiterated that it was not necessary.

“This patrolling in cyberspace is one of the tactical elements of our activities, one of our duties provided by police law – to prevent violations of the law and we did not invent the bicycle,” assured A. Paulauskas.

However, D. Kuolys did not give up and recalled the arguments of “inappropriate speeches, comments and messages”, as well as “hate speech, disinformation and all other issues”, that if they are inappropriate for the police, they will be taken public alert measures.

“There is article 25 of the Constitution, which prohibits defamation, humiliation of honor and dignity, there is a Penal Code that provides for liability for defamation and injury, but it is said that it is not the police who have to deal with this and the person must go to the prosecutors. And what do the police do? It introduces concepts that are not legally validated. So what legislation will the police adopt to act?

If the police admit that they did not recognize the operation of the Constitution and the Penal Code, why? There are allegations that people are insulted, slandered and humiliated and do not call the police, and how are the police going to address questions of the philosophy of language that even specialists do not solve? ”D. Kuolys posed rhetorical questions.

He who takes the risk understands but does not have all the answers

According to A. Paulauskas, Lithuania is not a “militia state in the east” and children are no longer intimidated by police officers, so the police must be trusted. At that time, the role of the police was to prevent warnings in some cases without the need for any judicial procedure.

“We do not have the objective of punishing, we have the objective of guaranteeing the rights of people not to be slandered, covered in dirt,” said the official. However, when asked who is the “wrong language” and who will determine it, A. Paulauskas admitted that what are not even established provisions on hate speech, and in case of conflict, would not be the police, but the experts. who presented their conclusions. And thousands of similar situations on the street are also sometimes a boundary test, with individual police officers judging whether to limit themselves to warnings of potentially crossing red lines.

However, the virtual space is not a street where if you do not listen to the police patrol, you run away, you ignore it, they will pack you for not complying with the orders of legitimate officers, and then you will find out in the commission. And the internet will just crash, send the slash, and then what?

“We see such a risk and it is possible that one or another person who hides under a pseudonym is not available to us. But this does not mean that anything should be done, without a doubt, there are technological mechanisms and if there is an obvious crime, such as inciting to killing people of another race, religion or gender, other mechanisms are activated ”, A. Paulauskas pointed out.

He acknowledged that the line between Kremlin misinformation and the news could be very blurred: what if an older person, whether in Lithuania or Sweden, doesn’t have a single vaccine? Do you already deserve a virtual police alert? Where is the line between calls for no quarantine, conspiracy theories about a fictional virus, or between heated debates on historical issues, human rights, gender equality, hate speech, or criticism of the government, for example? And who will set that threshold?

“We value it every day, when there are conflicts or family fights, when we have to find out who was involved, who is to blame. Here it is similar: the officials will evaluate according to their experience, legal knowledge and we will try to standardize as much as possible, to help the officials. I am not naive, it is not black or white and it will be a great challenge for us ”, – A. Paulauskas was surprised by the supposed demonization of the virtual patrol.

“Perhaps, I do not rule out that a person is offended if he is warned, but perhaps this protects him from the next step, such as a crime or a violation, since the main objective is prevention,” said the commissioner, adding. that at least initially from the idea of ​​a virtual patrol, the only simple goal is expected: that this patrol will win many friends on facebook.

D. Kuolis was not only unconvinced by such arguments, but he was even more horrified, because the police, with all their power, according to him, are preparing for improvisations without legal basis. And the entire public campaign of the virtual patrol, according to the interlocutor, is only intimidation of the people when the officials covered up the politicians.

“A free man cannot agree to that, a free man must protest. There cannot be an anonymous police force in a free republic, citizens must rebel against such arbitrariness ”, crossed D. Kuolys.