Current Events BLOG

The current events article that I spoke briefly about on Monday was titled Your Next Facebook 'Friend' Could Be A Federal Agent and it discussed the concern that government presence is starting to make its way on to social networking websites. The article suggests that federal agents will try to befriend people to investigate cases involving them. I always assumed that our private information on the web could magically be accessed by the government at at time so the fact that there is a need to 'befriend' someone came across as a little odd to me. Regardless, they claim that because having more friends may signify higher web status, people are willing to accept requests from users the do not know just to add another number on their friend list. I thought for sure that this fad of accepting strange friend requests went out of style along with MySpace, but apparently people have not quit seeking to be the one with the most friends... real or not. Sooner or later this will be back to bite them, I guess.

This article claims that the Facebook Feds are using the site to "reveal personal communications, establish motives and personal relationships, provide location information, prove and disprove alibis, and establish crime or criminal enterprises," which in my opinion is a little crazy. These sites were created for entertainment purposes and are, especially in the past year or two, getting a lot of people into trouble that could have been avoided if they hadn't been posting on Facebook like it was their private journal. The scariest part about this article is that it references playing Facebook detective as a new form of undercover policing where the government would have no problem pretending to be one of the friends of family members. Although its totally creepy for someone, even a federal agent, to go study what you say about yourself in order to build a profile, I could live knowing that it happens and just make sure I'm careful with what I say on there. For someone to pose as someone I know to extract information out of me sounds more like fraud than investigation and is not acceptable on ANY level.

I suppose that there are some positive aspects having government presence on the web. Assuming you aren't doing anything illegal, there's really nothing to worry about. There have also been examples of Facebook evidence proving people innocent. Rodney Bradford, for instance, updated his status to read "Where's my pancakes" at approximately the same time that a crime he was being charged for was committed. The courts checked the information from Facebook and came to the conclusion that Rodney was not their man, and he was let go. So while, I am an advocate for web privacy, I am not blind to the benefits of the government monitoring Facebook. My suggestion, however, is to ALWAYS think before you act... even on the web. Oh, and also update your status with inane comments frequently to provide a solid alibi.

Here's a LINK to the article.