Right: a cartoon speculating on a future jury system influenced by social media (copyright, Tom Fishburne at www.casecentral.com).
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Background information
(Most of the information contained below comes from a Wikipedia entry titled 'Use of social media websites in investigations. The site can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_social_network_websites_in_investigations)
Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook has been used by police and university officials to prosecute users of said sites. In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court to determine an appropriate sentence based on a defendant's attitude
Facebook, a social network service, is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, a popular online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. In the early years of the site, these pages could be viewed by other registered users from the same school, including resident assistants, campus police, or others who signed up for the service. The user privileges and terms of service of the site have since been changed to allow users to control who has the ability to view their content.
Recent disciplinary action against United States students based on information made available on Facebook has spurred debate over the legality and ethics of school administrators' harvesting such information. Facebook's Terms of Use specify that 'the website is available for your personal, non-commercial use only', leading some to believe that college administrators and police may not use the site for conducting investigations. However, Facebook spokespeople have made clear that Facebook is a public forum and all information published on the site should be presumed available to the general public, school administrators included. Legal experts agree that public information sources such as Facebook can be legally used in criminal or other investigations.
In the aftermath of the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot, community participation in assisting police to identify the rioters has been described as unprecedented, police admitted to being overwhelmed by the amount of evidence provided by social media. Equally, the number of cases where evidence of crime has been detected on a social media site and then acted on by police is large and growing. In February 2006, for example, a 16-year-old Colorado boy was arrested for juvenile possession of a firearm after police saw pictures that he had posted on MySpace of himself posing with rifles and handguns. He was convicted in April 2006.
In August 2012 the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conducted its second annual survey on law enforcement's use of social media tools. There are 600 law enforcement agencies from 48 states represented in the survey results. The survey found
- 92.4% of agencies surveyed use social media.
- The most common social media use by survey respondents was investigations, 77.1%.
- 56.3% of agencies not currently using social media are considering its adoption.
- 61.9% of agencies surveyed have a social media policy and an additional 18.9% are in the process of crafting a policy.
- 60% of agencies surveyed state that they are somewhat concerned or very concerned about online radicalisation and violent extremism.
- 74% of agencies report that social media has helped solve crimes in their jurisdiction..."