Geofeedia cuts half of staff after losing access to Twitter, Facebook
Chicago-based Geofeedia, a CIA-backed social-media monitoring platform that drew fire for enabling law enforcement surveillance, has let go 31 of its approximately 60 employees, a spokesman said Tuesday.
In mid-October, Twitter followed Facebook and Instagram in cutting Geofeedia off from its valuable data stream, after an American Civil Liberties Union report said police had used the platform to track protests and other large gatherings. The Chicago Police Department and others have used the company's tools.
Geofeedia cut the jobs, mostly in sales in the Chicago office, in the third week of October, the spokesman said. It has offices in Chicago, Indianapolis and Naples, Fla. The cuts were first reported by Crain's Chicago Business.
