Social Media Crime Stats on the Rise

www.topnews.in

It’s not very clever using social media accounts like Twitter and Facebook to admit committing crimes but apparently UK users don’t seem to care. Maybe they want a visit from the police?

Police are investigating thousands of allegations of sexual offences, harassment, and threats to kill along with other lesser serious offences that were allegedly committed in 2014.

Out of 45 Police forces, 35 saw a rise in the number of crimes that involved Facebook, whereas 24 forces said they received more mentions on Twitter than 2013. Perhaps committing crimes and bragging about it via social media gets you more “likes”.

A new study has found that being “liked” on social media is more important than being liked in reality, leading to odd behaviour and the inability to enjoy life in the present moment.

This may be the reason why criminals are posting their crimes on social media. In 2013, the Metropolitian Police received 932 crime reports, however they received 1207 crime reports in 2014.

"I think, quite simply, it is because everyone is using technology now ... and it's part of everyone's everyday life” said DCI Tonya Anttonis, from newly formed Norfolk and Suffolk cyber-crime unit.

"It's important to victims of crime that they have confidence in coming forward and reporting to us and important for us to have an opportunity to investigate it and bring offenders to justice."

One third of social media crimes still go unreported and apparently, it’s not easy to track down the perpetrators. Maybe if we encouraged criminals to add their location with their bragging statuses with more “likes”?

http://www.digitaltrends.com/

Many have been quick to mention that even though Facebook and Twitter may have appeared in a crime report, social media isn’t the tool used to commit an offence.

Paul Giannasi from the NPCC’s hate crime working group assures that work on trying to tackle online abuse, harassment and other offenses was ongoing.

“There have been a number of successful prosecutions against people posting offensive and abusive messages, including new legislation making revenge pornography illegal,” he said.

“In some cases, this has led to the offender being imprisoned.”

“Anyone who feels that they are being harassed on social media should report it to the police via the dedicated True Vision website so that we can investigate it fully.”

Yes, report them! Jail is an interesting location choice for social networking rehab but I think it might work. It’s best that these people take time out to think about other ways of achieving social networking “trophy” status, or just other ways of spending their time.

Jessica Smith 

Australian girl, Jessica is loving England but is missing the sunshine! She loves writing, dogs and plays hockey! Follow her @JessicaAtSMF

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