From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

Brooke Gladstone is out this week.

I'm Bob Garfield.

This week, close to one and a half million Facebook users checked in to the same place,

the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Cannonball, North Dakota,

where protesters have been camping out for months

to stymie construction of the North Dakota Access Pipeline through a major water source

and sacred tribal lands. Check-ins announce one's physical presence at a location, but no,

there wasn't a mass exodus to the Peace Guard in state. It was a tactic,

a misdirection campaign. The surge followed reports that said police were using Facebook

to identify and target protesters. The post is meant to overwhelm and confuse sheriff's deputies

who are allegedly using Facebook check-ins to determine who's at

the protest camp. The Morton County Sheriff's Department claims that it, quote, is not and does not

follow Facebook check-ins for the protest camp or any location. Nonetheless, by overwhelming

social media feeds with a virtual human wave, the check-ins finally attracted mainstream media to a story and a location they'd scarcely noticed.

Candy Mossett is an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, and has been part of the encampment since August.

She believes the Facebook check-in meme finally brought the protest

the attention it deserves, but don't ask her where the idea came from. You know, honestly,

we don't really know. People keep asking, and we're asking each other, who started this? Was it

Sacred Stone Camp? And they were like, no, it wasn't us. Was it, was it the indigenous

environmental network? We said, no, we didn't start it. I got some random messages on Facebook

Messenger that said, this is what we're going to do, check in. And I thought, okay, you know,

...