Hoax? Sheriff’s department says it’s not watching Facebook check-ins at Standing Rock

Thousands of Facebook users across the U.S. have been falsely “checking in” at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota after a viral message claimed that investigators were tracking protesters on Facebook.

Article by Matt Pearce

Officials, however, say it’s a hoax.

But some Native American activists still welcomed the check-ins as another form of showing support for the months-long protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline, proposed to run past tribal land on its route between North Dakota and Illinois.

The source of the message — which used “Randing Stock” as a code phrase so that users could locate each other — could not be verified by the Los Angeles Times.

“The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at SR [Standing Rock] in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps,” said the earliest publicly traceable version of the post, shared by a Facebook user from North Carolina on Sunday. “

SO Water Protectors are calling on EVERYONE to check-in at SR to overwhelm and confuse them.”

The message took off. Sympathetic Facebook users began checking in, while copying and pasting the message into their own profiles, like an email chain message.

Some law enforcement agencies have used social media in recent years to monitor activists— and, in some cases, used social media posts as evidence in criminal cases against protesters — but on Monday, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said the claim was a hoax.

“In response to the latest rumor / false claim circulating on social media we have the following response,” the department said in a post on Facebook. “The Morton County Sheriff’s Department is not and does not follow Facebook check-ins for the protest camp or any location. This claim / rumor is absolutely false.”