2024-03-14 22:27:24
NORTH DAKOTA (KXNET) — After nearly an entire month in the federal courthouse, North Dakota’s trial once morest the United States is finally complete.
The state has been claiming that the U.S. owes them $38 million due to their lack of response during the DAPL protests in 2016 and 2017.
During the final day in the courthouse, North Dakota called upon Gary Warner as a rebuttal witness to the U.S.’s analytical experts they previously called upon.
Warner started the cybercrime investigation program at the University of Alabama Birmingham, where he uses social media to identify terrorists and eliminate opioid sales.
Warner analyzed Dr. Steckel’s use of social media to prove that the Corps of Engineers did not play a role in protest participation and said that it was inconsistent and limited.
Dr. Steckel claimed that he used particular data collection methods to see what was happening on the ground, in the protest camps. To do so, he used particular Twitter keywords and studied Facebook pages that he felt represented what was happening in the camps.
New interactive MAR map available online
However, Warner demonstrated that these collection methods were flawed.
Dr. Steckel did not geofence the location of Twitter keywords, and when Warner did so, he was able to see that particular words were most used in New York and California, rather than on the ground in the protest camps.
When analyzing Facebook, Dr. Steckel judged how much impact a post had only by how many comments it received — not by how many shares or likes it got — and only looked at 36 public pages.
Warner said that, based on the design of Dr. Steckel’s plan, he might not reach valid conclusions as to how Corps decisions affected the protesters.
In the cross-examination, Warner said he isn’t offering an opinion on what caused the protests or the state’s damages.
After Warner’s testimony, the court heard three different depositions and wrapped up the trial.
The courtroom transcript will be completed in regarding two months, but the final decision may not come until the fall.
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