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2 In today’s day and age, the use of Social Media is at record highs and increasing. With multiple forms of Social media, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook it is not uncommon for an individual to spend even upwards of three hours a day on social media in the form of numerous social media sites. All around the world more and more individuals are engaging in posting a large amount of personal information throughout the social media sites of which they belong to, whether that be what they are eating that day, where they are headed, who they are with, and so forth. It is undeniable that our society is more interconnected than it has ever been in the history of our world. Humans in the twenty-first century have the capability to find information on any topic of interest within the click of a button, or to locate anyone simply by searching for them on Facebook. It is now possible to stay updated with a family members trip around the world even without personally contacting them if they check into restaurants, hotels, or airports through the Facebook check in feature. Social Media sites now often serve the purpose of spreading world news, as it is fairly common for people to come across news on platforms such as Facebook.

This interconnectedness online has benefited Business’s, Entrepreneurs, freelancers, and artists in terms of profit as it is the best way to market yourself or your product. On the downside, this wide use of Social Media sites has brought about an increase in cyber bullying, cyber crime, drug deals that are orchestrated online, and the coordination of other crimes or gang activities online. It is not uncommon for people to even post pictures or statuses about what kind of illegal activities they committed whether that be rape, drug involved or violence. With these crimes leaving a mark on social media sites, law enforcement have made quite the effort to gain access to these sites. (policechiefmagazine.org) Twitter being the most resistant to these efforts claiming that the users have a right to the privacy of their accounts, and Facebook being the most compliant. Although Facebook has stated that it is against its user rights it is doing little to prevent fake accounts from being created. (Policechiefmagazine.org) The problem is that local authorities have taken to accounts such as Facebook under false accounts in hopes of befriending suspects and finding out any personal information. This brings up the ethical question involving privacy. If you have the right to remain silent and the right to not answer any questions an officer asks you, not to mention they have to call you in for questioning, how fair is it for them to go and seek information without your consent and/ or knowledge. The argument that law enforcement will maintain that they are doing nothing wrong as it is online for anyone to see. Although there are exceptions in which the suspects are unintelligent to the point of posting evidence against them online as with the case of two teens from Ohio who posted a video on Facebook of them sexually assaulting a girl (Michael Pearson, CNN.com) it is still an area that needs to be debated whether pr not police should have the authority and capability to go social media sites under fake names to look into their suspect’s lives. In addition to this, what justifies someone to become a suspect? And what if the police find other information that might intrigue them? This is a question of power against privacy but more so security against social freedom.

3 It is interesting to see what the future holds in regards to social crimes and privacy of social media site users. Just how much of their information is being pooled in intelligence agencies of various sorts or even hackers? There might be a great deal of online surveillance within the coming months or years as people have taken their voices to the internet and have been using the web to stay in tune with what is happening around the