by Troy Norris

Created on: January 30, 2009

The recent rise in the use of social networking sites as evidence in criminal convictions stems from the age old and unfortunate fact that criminals tend to be stupid. This common denominator, when applied with liberal amounts of technology as well as alcohol, has resulted in an ever increasing number of amazing, and embarrassing, situations for these criminal masterminds. All that we can do is collectively shake our heads, sigh deeply, and attempt to delve deeper into the mechanics of how facebooks have turned against their owners; lest they one day do the same to us.

First and foremost in frequency of ill advised usage is the capability of these networks to both archive and share photographic and video evidence with millions of unsuspecting witnesses. For reasons only known to God and the criminal subconscious, the youth of the world are apparently incapable of refraining from the practice of amateur photography every time they get high, steal from someone, or set a homeless person on fire. Unfortunately, this only seems to register as a bad idea once the photos are labeled Exhibits A-1 through Q-5 on an evidence table in front of them.

Trailing a good distance behind, but no less effective from the perspective of the prosecution, stands my personal favorite "the Wall". For the socially networked felon, a wall is the supreme convenience. Basically an individual's message board on their facebook page, if so inclined one could use this function to plan the nefarious activity with an accomplice without the need for pesky hideouts, or even a mutually convenient meeting time. Participants can merely banter back and forth to diabolical consensus by the digital equivalent of post it notes, checking for messages at their leisure. Additionally, this feature can also be used to brag about any successes amongst each other, with anyone else the hypothetical law breaker is friends with, as well as with groups of people using facebook who share similar interests. The inevitable draw back is that these conversations stay where they are unless deleted, and attempting to clean up one's mind droppings around the internet can be a daunting task that invariably leaves damning omissions with which computer literate investigators can build a case.

The final, and most innocuous, of avenues in which crimes are solved via facebook is through what is known as "the Status Update". Through simple one sentence descriptions of what they're doing or feeling, users can notify all their friends of whatever irritating and irrelevant thought managed to wander in at that given moment. And with probably the most craptacular system upgrade ever devised, facebookers can now respond to these updates by sharing that they "thought she was 18 to", or that "it must really be nice to be high right now", or that "the meter maid you shot had it coming". Particularly well timed updates also have the ability to ruin a good alibi, being that they're time stamped, in addition to just appearing suspicious and wasting everyone's time.

In the end, we can only assume that one day in the near future the criminal element of our society will learn the power these sites have to do them harm, in addition to good. And that the internet, in a very short period of time, has gone from a world in which no one was watching, to one in which everyone is not only watching but participating. On that day, these people will retreat back into their corners and shadows, once again shamed and fearful of judgment. But until that day comes, this pattern of behavior will rage on in perceived anonymity, while the vigilant forces of justice press their advantage.

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