Crime Never Pays - Not Even in Social Media Followers

CrimeFeed

You'd think in this day and age that people would be aware that you should be careful what you post on social media and not just because you might become a victim of crime. It seems these days that a lot of criminals are either being caught by social media or have it used against them as evidence. These people are either stupid or their victims are smart as they share the evidence of what is going on in the most public way possible.

It seems like one of the most common services for this is Snapchat. This is probably because Snapchat is public but the pictures and videos are deleted once viewed unless someone takes a screenshot so people probably think they're safe. One recent case was solved because the attackers took a photo of their bloody hands and knife after the crime and had sent it to someone nearby. That man took a snapshot and when the police came to ask questions, he named the men in the photo. An older example is of two young girls who beat a woman to death and during the assault decided to take a selfie with the beaten woman in the frame to send to their friends. When they later called the police to take them home, they took another selfie in the back of the police van. It seems shocking that people are stupid enough to do this. Yes, some killers have fans for whatever reason but you're inviting the police to catch you by leaving evidence. Just because the pictures disappear from the system doesn't mean that you're okay and that it won't leave a trail.

Snapchat has also been used recently in the Adam Johnson trial. The former footballer is being charged with grooming and partaking in sexual activities with three minors. One of the girls had recorded a video on Snapchat when she'd met him because none of her friends had believed she was really going to. The video only showed the dashboard of his car but he's heard talking to her about football. It's nothing graphic but it's enough evidence to prove that he had been alone with the victim for a period of time and all because she wanted her friends to know that she really was meeting this footballer. Of course she was later attacked on Facebook and the insults were what led her to telling her Dad what happened before they went to the police but it all adds up to indicate that something did in fact happen.

So now we're living in an age where people video their crimes, taunt the police on Facebook and can be jailed for comments made on social media. Times have changed and people of all ages need to learn that you can't post everything you do or think.

The Telegraph

But for the younger generation at least, there's a sense of celebrity you can gain by posting these things. While some people might be disgusted and report you, others might begin to admire you. Only this week in South Carolina, two young men who were being convicted of murder turned to the news cameras and told people to follow them on Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram. If they get sent to prison it's not going to matter how many followers they have but they were taking it all in their stride. This isn't surprising though with the small groups of people online who admire the young men who walk into their schools and start shooting. You get people claiming they're misunderstood and that they love them and it’s incredibly worrying. People want to see what's going on in these criminals heads and some people want to make excuses for it, that's probably what these people were hoping for.

For all the good social media can do for helping victims and their families and for helping to catch those involved, it also seems like it can encourage criminals. Where before these people probably still would have committed these crimes, they wouldn't have had an audience that they wanted to amuse or impress. The audience aspect of social media both helps and hinders when it comes to dealing with crime and it's hard to say what the continued impact is going to be.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @RosinaAtSMF

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