Social Media in Law Enforcement
As with anything that involves privacy and the supposed or alleged invasion thereof, the use of social media as a means to enforce laws and/or capture suspects often incurs the same wrath and scrutiny as any other supposed encroachment on privacy. Much the same thing is said of surveillance cameras in public or widely traversed private areas or personal property (Nichols, 2013). While use of social media as a means to monitor and track people's statements and actions can go too far, the capture and use of social media data that is readily and legally available is not unethical or improper to use and harness when speaking of viable and legitimate police actions.
Pros & Cons
The cons to using social media as a means to enforce laws and capture suspects are few but they are definitely present. As intimated in the subject, the use of surveillance cameras, just as one example, in areas that are public or heavily frequented by the public like public streets, shopping malls and so forth is often heavily criticized as "Big Brother" or otherwise a form of privacy invasion. Of course, the legal concept of "reasonable expectation of privacy" would be in force and thus would rule the day but this logical and reasonable provision of the law does not stop a lot of the public from complaining about the process and method nonetheless (SSD, 2013)....
With that in mind, Facebook and similar websites have privacy controls that can be hard if not difficult to legally circumvent. While this makes sense from a personal control and privacy standpoint, it can be vexing for law enforcement to have the information online but not accessible. However, there is a happy medium at times where a law enforcement member can friend someone who is friends with the suspect(s) of friends of the same. However, this can be difficult as many people will not friend people they do not know and posing as someone can be legally perilous and/or procedurally difficult.
Another con to using social media for law enforcement is that social media is not a panacea when it comes to capturing people. Social media, like many other online devices and such, can be used in a fake or manufactured manner that can include saying things that are not true, tagging themselves where someone is not actually present and so forth. This could even be done by an astute criminal that knows the cops are tracking them and use social media tips and tricks against the cops by representing that they are somewhere that they are not. Also, people that use social media, if they are smart and informed, can greatly control and manipulate what people see and do not see. Some people can even be blocked form seeing anything at all up to and including their name. Facebook, as one example, as…
