Social Media and Modern-Day Investigative Techniques

A short essay on how Law Enforcement and Investigation Agencies use the Internet and Social Media to uncover crime and catch criminals.

It is widely acknowledged that the Internet has single-handedly introduced more change into the way our modern world operates than any other invention of the past few decades. Specifically, the creation of Social Media as a form of online communication has had a particularly significant impact on many aspects of contemporary life, including (but not limited to) education, jobs, politics and even relationships. However, apart from meaning that the regular person now has a plethora of information available at their fingertips, the rapid growth of Social Media also means that the personal lives and information of each of those people are easily accessible to others and, more importantly, to Law Enforcement.

In some cases, Social Media does the job of uncovering the crime and catching the criminal before Law Enforcement even has a chance to learn of the crime. A recent case of this kind that comes to mind is the murder of Bianca Devins, a teenager who was killed by an acquaintance, Brandon Clark, who very foolishly (for himself) posted pictures of Devins’ dead body on his various Social Media accounts. Obviously, the people who had the bad luck of seeing them immediately notified the Police, who arrived on the scene to see Clark beside Devins’ body. In cases such as these, the criminal basically uses Social Media as a form of indirect contact with Law Enforcement. Before the creation of the Internet, such a course of events would have been practically impossible. In pre-Internet times, Clark would have needed to run around the streets shouting about his crime in order to achieve the same effect.

In other cases, Social Media is used by the Police as a follow up tool. This seems to happen more in regard to bigger-scale crimes, such as terrorist acts or mass murders. It is not uncommon for the perpetrator’s Social Media presence to be brought up in Court as evidence of their guilt - or innocence - after the crime had taken place. Many mass murderers, such as school shooters, often leave a wealth of evidence behind in their Social Media accounts, with some going as far as to openly air their plans. A somewhat recent example of this in action is the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, where the perpetrator, Nikolas Cruz, was proven to have been very vocal about his intentions on Social Media, apart from the fact that classmates had tried to alert Police to his intentions beforehand.

In a more subtle way, Social Media has proven to be a great geolocator. Most people nowadays possess a smartphone (or other smart device) and carry it everywhere with them. If a person has a Google account on their phone (or any other account) with their geolocation turned on, then their location is automatically and easily available to the pertinent authorities. Social Media is a particularly good tool for discerning where a person is at any given time. This could be done based on what (and from where) they made a post, gave a like or left a comment. Even if they haven’t posted anything on the day when a crime took place, the geolocation of their device can still be checked. This is especially useful as a way to either prove or disprove someone’s alibi, although it may backfire. Zachary McCoy became a burglary suspect simply because an app on his phone showed that he had been near the burglarized house when the crime was taking place.

Another, more controversial, use of Social Media and, generally, the Internet by Law Enforcement is the use of computer and phone cameras. There has been much uproar over the fact that people might be being spied on by Intelligence Agencies through their electronics. Whether Law Enforcement has access to any possible footage or not is a moot point. However, one can imagine that it would probably come in very useful, especially in long-term operations, such as busting a drug ring. Furthermore, even if people aren’t being spied on by any outside forces, the presence of cameras on people’s phones can still be conveniently used to catch criminals in the act. People are always carrying their phones with them. If a crime were to occur somewhere where there is any amount of people present, many of those people wouldn’t hesitate to whip their phones out and take some pictures. Some of them might even post those pictures on the Internet.

Another way that the Internet can be used by criminals and Law Enforcement alike is through the so-called Dark Web, which is difficult to access because it requires specific software or authorization. Many criminal dealings take place in the Dark Web, such as the sale of drugs and weapons as well as human trafficking. A notable example is the Silk Road, which was an online black market designed to allow users to anonymously buy and sell drugs using bitcoin. The whole operation went down when an off-duty officer managed to uncover the founder of the Silk Road. Furthermore, there are social media platforms throughout the Dark Web where people can chat and interact. Unsurprisingly, a lot of these interactions are of an illegal nature. If Law Enforcement were to infiltrate these chats (which I’m sure they do every now and then), a lot of potential crime would be thwarted.

To summarize, people themselves are much too eager to expose various personal details of their lives - much to the convenience of the Police - and Social Media makes this incredibly simple. There have been countless instances of criminals who, lured by the safety of their assumed anonymity online, gave their crimes away using Social Media. Other criminals deliberately make use of Social Media to brag about their crimes, either for shock value or because they crave attention.