Facebook Crime

I admit to being a Facebook addict. I spend countless hours procrastinating on the social networking site. But with the dawn of this new era of technology, I am forced to concede that it is fraught with risks. It is an example of how the media can be USED to commit crimes.

Apart from the fact that Facebook allows for the tagging of unwanted photos, it presents a forum whereby criminals get free reign.

Scammers: There is a new trend of online scams that see money being stolen from unsuspecting victims when they pose as a friend in need.

Spammers: I am often bombarded with SPAM on Facebook. I admit it is annoying, but there are also risks that such SPAM are indeed viruses waiting to plague my beloved MacBook. Indeed Facebook Security yesterday announced that it had filed complaints against Spammers in New York.

Interestingly however, such stories about scammers and spamming rarely make headline news. Especially when compared to stories about murder. When white collar crime does become newsworthy it is normally because large sums of money are involved (Katz, pg 54). For example, in Florida a money manager was convicted of defrauding investors $168 million and imprisoned for 14 years. However, as Katz identifies it is the magnitude of the person's legitimate wealth and power that is most newsworthy.

Other crimes we hear about in relation to Facebook, is where murder has been facilitated by the social networking site. Just this year, 18 year old Nona Belomesof was murdered after meeting up with a man who had befriended her on Facebook. While I doubt the Social networking site, itself, can be blamed (even vicariously) for Nona's death it was dubbed within the news media as a "facebook murder" . Such characterisation of these crimes means that individual responsibility for one's welfare and personal information is shirked.