These days, everything happens on social media–including solving crime. Just as you know how easy it is to keep tabs on your ex through his Facebook, police quickly realized in recent years that online profiles can open up a whole world of candid information on potential suspects. The Atlantic has a fascinating piece that delves into the problems that arise from policing social media.
The author, Meredith Broussard, highlights one particularly disturbing story, where a misleading social media profile may have led to arresting an innocent man. Harlem resident Jelani Henry’s brother Asheem had joined a gang as a teenager, and while Jelani claims he had little involvement in actual gang activity, he was pressured into things like regularly liking their content on Facebook. If you don’t like the gang’s videos and other media, he explained to a reporter, “people are gonna ask you why.”
Eventually Jelani was arrested for a double shooting and sent to the notoriously violent Rikers Island prison. Jelani and his family claim he was falsely charged, all because of his supposed connections with the gang that amounted to nothing more than connections and Facebook likes, and a vague description of a “tall light-skinned black man in a hoodie” who committed the crime.
From Broussard:
She also talks about how police databases of digital information, which are kept for a long time, can provide a sense of permanence to kids’ online actions that doesn’t reflect the reality of their lives:
Read the full piece here.
