Hootsuite: Cancel your contract with ICE

Hootsuite — a social media management company that profits from tools designed to track, amplify, and analyze online interactions — is now putting those tools in the hands of ICE.

The Canadian-founded tech company is currently under contract with ICE — an agency synonymous with detention, deportation, family separation, and deaths in custody. Hootsuite’s CEO claims the deal doesn’t involve direct surveillance, but the same analytics and social-listening tools used by brands to track conversations and public opinion can also be used to map patterns, communities, and public response — tools critics warn can be repurposed for enforcement and profiling. Strip away the corporate language and it’s simple: Hootsuite is helping ICE do its job. 

Hootsuite knows exactly why people are furious — because they’ve been here before. In 2020, the company cancelled a similar ICE contract after employees and the public pushed back hard, openly acknowledging that working with an agency driving detention and deportation of immigrants conflicted with its values. But now leadership claims this contract is “different.”

The backlash has been immediate and loud. Current employees have also been resigning in protest. Former staff, customers, and civil-rights advocates have strongly protested, with hundreds demonstrating dissent outside Hootsuite’s Vancouver headquarters just last week. The message is clear: partnering with ICE is a choice — and Hootsuite is choosing profit over people.