Social Media Detective: When Internet Gansters Tweet

By Yosef Solomon on Feb 3, 2010

Yesterday, I read an interesting story on MSNBC about “gang members” and their use of social networks. The article talked about how gang members are linking themselves to their crimes by tweeting and commenting on their illegal activities. Law enforcement officials are utilizing this information to identify more gang affiliated members and organizations.

While criminals continue to senselessly brag about their crimes online, local authorities are paying more attention to sites like Twitter and Facebook for leads. According to the MSNBC article, police want to downplay the fact they are monitoring the gang activity online because it might blow their cover. They shouldn’t be too worried though, these guys have pretty big egos.

As social networks continue to surge in the number of users and overall interaction, we’re beginning to see just how many different types of people are using the medium. From criminals to religious leaders, social networks literally have something for everyone. It’ll be interesting to see how law enforcement progress their Web 2.0 efforts in investigating crimes. Soon we might see job ads for “Social Media Detectives.”