More than 1,000 criminal offences involving Facebook were reported last year, police have revealed.Ooh, scary!
And yet, when you get beneath the screaming 72 point headline, the reality is far less dramatic. In fact, the next time someone send one of those ransom notes composed of newspaper clippings from the ‘Times’, you can legitimately say the ‘Times’, too, are involved in kidnapping by these standards…
The site – created by Mark Zuckerberg – was named in other crimes where arguments had started online but led to physical attacks.And I guess telephone calls never sparked the same things? Or letters?
And at the ‘less serious’ end of the scale, criminals have used the website to boast about offences they have committed.Well, this is a plus, is it not? It means even our increasingly risk and work-averse police might actually catch them!
12 comments:
It means even our increasingly risk and work-averse police might actually catch them!
Nah. It means that they'll want the site and others like it closed down in case it interrupts their work ethic of doing precisely sod all.
I'm absolutely disgusted by this statistic. 1000! A thousand for goodness sake!
Something should be done. It's rare for me to agree with the police but we cannot just sit back and allow huge numbers of crimes like these to persist.
Shut the damn thing down. Shut it down NOW.
The criminals in uniform: Almost 1,000 officers with convictions from drug dealing to perverting justice are still in the police
Forces employ policemen and women with criminal records for assault, burglary, supplying drugs and perverting the course of justice.
Among them are several senior officers, including two detective chief inspectors and a chief inspector working for the Metropolitan Police.
A Devon and Cornwall PC convicted of burglary and officers in Essex convicted of dangerous driving, supplying cannabis and robbery.
A volunteer special constable continues to serve despite being convicted of swiping a set of car number plates and using them to steal petrol from service stations.
In Hertfordshire a sergeant was convicted of dangerous driving and a Kent PC has a 1998 conviction for perverting the course of justice.
Five Merseyside officers have been convicted of assault and another has a criminal record for causing death by careless driving.
A North Wales officer was convicted of forgery and a Staffordshire Police inspector has a record for keeping a dangerous dog.
A Surrey Police detective constable was convicted of obstructing police while others have records for wounding, drink driving and animal cruelty.
In my last 2 years as a Police officer, I was involved in 4 cases of identity theft which involved the victims use of Facebook (and that was only one officer in a small section of a fairly small division). Multiply that by, at least 10 times throughout the Force, and then again by the 42 Police forces in UK and you may get an idea of some of the crimes linked with Facebook. That's not counting the basic "Chardonnay Beyonce called me a slag. I want her done, innit." (much more prevalent and time consuming as they are all required to be investigated even though everyone knows these jobs are crocks of sh#t). For every new technological invention you will find someone able to use it to commit crime and even more to show they are not really worthy of being included in the human race.
Penseivat
@ Penise
Never allow the relevance of sample size to cast doubt on your familiarity with Statistics.
"For every new technological invention you will find someone able to use it to commit crime and even more to show they are not really worthy of being included in the human race." Even today, those words are so true for Taser users.
"Nah. It means that they'll want the site and others like it closed down ..."
Good point!
"For every new technological invention you will find someone able to use it to commit crime.."
Indeed. But has any invention yet so quickly earned the enmity of the authorities?
As well as your other self-proclaimed qualifications Melvin it seems you are now an expert on taser. Congratulations.How do the "millions" of people you speak for feel about its use?
If you have a better way of dealing with violent criminals then i'm all ears.Once again witty retorts and Latin phrases don't work
As for JP-nice rant old chap but it's relevance on here is....? Or just wanted to make a point? I'm sure you have investigated each case personally or have you just cut and pasted from somewhere else?
Jaded
Melv,
An intelligent person would have understood that rather than referring to statistics, I was merely giving an estimate of the size of the problem. As you are clearly not an intelligent person, your mistake is excused - a bit like your continuing to utter the sh*te you do. As for this social media earning the enmity of authorities, the majority of them use it, with varying degrees of success.
Penseivat
yea ees dum cos dusnt no jadeds a mail policewoman
Great answer as always GTM. Concise,easy to understand,on topic,informative.GFY
Jaded
There is a difference between education and intelligence. One can be educated and unintelligent (just read anything by Melv) and you can be uneducated but intelligent. I could try and do this in pictures if it would help, but I doubt it, so I won't!
Penseivat
JP,
Following on from Jaded's comment, there are roughly 42,000 Police officers in England in Wales (not counting those who Camoron and Winsor have got rid of through devious means). A very small percentage of these have sustained criminal records, each being treated on as indiviudal cases and some remaining as Police officers and some being dismissed the Service. Compare that, for instance, the Houses of Parliament where more than 50% have criminal convictions or are identified as adulterers, fraudsters and liars, yet all of them still continue to be our political masters. Then there are the thieving lawyers, the pederast teachers, the plagiarist authors, the lying, deceitful customs and immigration officers or politically motivated social experimenting staff of social services yet very few are required to end their employment. I trust that you will now be angry on those blogs which relate to those occupations. Of course you will, you are a fair minded person. I look forward to reading them.
Penseivat
As for JP-nice rant old chap but it's relevance on here is....?
Sorry, my attempt at irony (or should that be coppery?) clearly fell flat.
I was trying to draw a parallel between the supposed numbers of crimes committed on Facebook with those who have obviously wasted their time compiling the pointless statistic. Strangely, its almost impossible to divine the numbers of crimes perpetrated by the police on an annual basis; hence the alternative of serving police officers with criminal records. It's not perfect but it was all I had to hand and the almost identical headline number made it too tempting not to use.
Compare that, for instance, the Houses of Parliament where more than 50% have criminal convictions...
If it were an MP spouting-off about Facebook crimes then I would indeed have used your comparison. But thank you for helping me to make the point. In any walk of life there crimes committed which have been facilitated by the medium or sphere from within which they work or use.
Casting the first stone and all that.
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