Social Media Leading To An Increase In Arrests, Convictions

Social media, and specifically Facebook, are everywhere these days. Countless websites and phone apps give you the option to sign up with your Facebook account, there’s nearly limitless ways businesses and organizations can reach out to you via social media, and every other day it seems like there’s some new celebrity blow-up on Twitter that you might or might not care about.

Above and beyond being a place where actors yell at each other and your grandma sends you inspirational quotes, social media has actually been taking on a greater role in society. Employers will use it as a way to review a potential new hire’s background before bringing them onboard, many social media platforms have sprung up to help people find new jobs, find a date, or even in some cases get pizza delivered from their favorite restaurant without actually having to make a phone call or visit their website.

Not all of the ways social media has been impacting our lives have been positive, however - or maybe that depends on how you look at it. Several judicial bodies, ranging from federal courts to sherriff’s departments and even the FBI themselves have been able to admit social media posts and text messages as evidence for convictions and felonies of all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes this can stem from simply bragging about something dumb you did on the Internet. Take, for example, this story from last year reported by the Herald Palladium wherein a potential school shooting was thwarted by the police being given threatening messages sent over Facebook to potential victims. Whereas even as recently as 5-10 years ago, messages of this type would have been possibly ignored or even laughed off, the increasing reach and importance of social media has spurred law enforcement to treat these sort of allegations far more seriously than ever before.

And even if it isn’t the Facebook posts themselves that lead to a conviction, in many cases they can be submitted as evidence if the accused is found to be bragging about illegal activity online. Howard & Howard recently reported on a case where a man from Chicago was found guilty of using a fake Indiana I.D. to purchase firearms and transport them back to Illinois for sale. The man was found guilty primarily on the strength of evidence taken both from his two confiscated cell phones containing text messages confirming his actions...and from him taking the time to brag about it on his personal Facebook. The evidence on his Facebook was found to be admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, and once a reasonable connection could be made proving the Facebook account was indeed his, the evidence was considered sufficient to find him guilty of illegal weapons sale and transport.

Of course, they’re not all that complicated - sometimes it just needs to be a simple unfortunate picture or video, such as this man from Florida (as reported by WPTV in Palm Beach) who used a picture of his own sherriff’s department wanted poster as a Facebook profile picture. Or, perhaps even more unfortunate, a group of young men posting a video for the Mannequin Challenge that featured all of them brandishing various firearms that led to several arrests for either illegal/unregistered firearm possession, convicted felons in possession of firearms, or both. Or, heck, here’s an entire Huffington Post article about how poor judgment in photographs can lead to legal troubles, starting off with an entrant about a young Florida mother finding herself in hot water after she photographed her infant son with marijuana paraphernalia.

If there’s one lesson you can take away from all this, it’s that you need to be more careful now about your social media than ever - and while it’s best just to not do anything against the law, for goodness’ sake try not to brag about it on Facebook.