Alice Ranson , Timothy Girling , Charles Craddock
Out of Liberty ’ s last 600 tweets , two of the three most used hashtags directly relate to the campaign - # FacialRecognition and # ResistFacialRec . Liberty ’ s prominent use of hashtags relating to the campaign undoubtedly has the potential to galvanize support for the campaign and potentially get it trending . However , since the hashtag # ResistFacialRec was first used on July 11 th 2018 , it has only been used 63 times since , 23 of which came from Liberty ’ s account . Thus , it is clear little online public discussion has been generated . This may partially be explained by the niche , ‘ nationallyconfined ’ nature of the issue .
That said however , it is important to acknowledge the fact that the number of a times a hashtag is used is not necessarily indicative of the level of support for the campaign . People may willingly sign the petition but choose not to engage in online discussion about the issue using the hashtag .
Liberty ’ s website hosts the petition for the campaign , which currently has received a total of 38,962 signatures . There are a number of important things to note regarding the number of signatures and effectiveness .
If Liberty are to have any realistic chance of achieving their goal
83 of banning facial recognition technology , then they will need at least 100,000 signatories of their petition for two interrelated reasons . Firstly , politicians are the only ones with the authority to ban the use of facial recognition . Secondly , only once a petition receives 100,000 signatories , will it then be considered for a debate in parliament . Therefore , 100,000 signatories is an absolute imperative to stand any real chance of achieving their goal .
As it stands , Liberty ’ s campaign has clearly not been as effective as desired , with only around 40 % ( 39,346 ) of the required signatories . That said , they have used an interesting technique in order to try and potentially increase signatories . This technique amounts to changing the target number of signatories on the petition incrementally , as they approach the target threshold . Only a month ago , the target on the website was 30,000 . However , once this target was achieved , it was then increased to 50,000 . This may increase the campaigns effectiveness in obtaining signatories as someone may be more psychologically inclined to sign it if they feel their signature is doing ‘ more ’ to reach the target . For example , someone may be less inclined to sign a petition that has 29,000 out of