Gang Presence in Social Network Sites
Year: 2011

IntroductionSocial networking sites are one of the leading trends in the ever evolving internet 2.0. Facebook, the most popular of these websites, now has more than 800 million active members (Facebook, 2012) making its population larger than that of most countries. The time spent on such networks by each person has also increased dramatically over the last few years as individuals increasingly rely on them.Over the past few months, stories of youth gangs using these sites to distribute videos of beatings have surfaced in the mass media (Ahlert, 2011) These reports state that criminal groups have been using social networking sites to coordinate illegal activities such as the transport and exportation of stolen metal (Linsell, 2012) Many journalists have confirmed that an increasing number of criminal organizations are turning to online social networks to communicate privately (Emery Salazar, 2012) and also to insult their enemies. An example of this would be "the head of a biker gang in Australia[who] recently used his Facebook page to taunt the people who had tried to kill him three times and to insult police officers who had given him a driving ticket (Monfried, 2012) Consistent with Morselli and Decary Hetu's previous findings (forthcoming) lawenforcement agencies have also been active on Facebook and other online social network platforms to warn citizens of risks (e.g. leaving their houses unprotected at Christmas) or to solicit information on ongoing investigations (Pyle, 2012).Using a keyword based approach, this paper will evaluate how criminal groups in Canada and abroad are taking advantage of online social networks to recruit new members and broadcast messages both publicly and privately. The first section presents an overview of the evolution of social networking media since their inception in the 1980s.The second section reviews previous studies on the subject, which demonstrate that there has been a shiftover the past few years and that gangs such as the Mexican cartels are now using social networking sites to monitor their enemies and launch propaganda campaigns. Discussion of data and methodology follow, with a presentation of the keyword based approach adopted by the researchers and the dataset collected in the fall of 2011. The fourth section presents the results of our data collection, which indicate that the presence of organized crime in social networking sites has increased sharply over the last year and that their footprint on Facebook and Twitter is larger. Finally, the last two sections discuss our results as well as our recommendation that these social networks be monitored on a regular basis in order to effectively keeps up with criminal organizations online.Online social networksSocial networking websites are "web based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system" (Boyd Ellison, 2007) The first expression of such services is found in the 1980s' Bulletin Board Systems or BBS (Zhongbao Zhang, 2003) which were built around computers that allowed a limited number of people to dial in through phone lines and leave messages and exchange files. This very basic (and text only) interface was popular amongst underground computer enthusiasts (Craig, 2005) who still had to wait until 1997 for the first "recognizable social network site" SixDegrees, to launch (Boyd Ellison, 2007).This first service was free and very easy to use, even for neophytes. For the first time, users had the possibility to create online profiles that allowed them to connect with friends and friends of friends.The success of SixDegrees and other early networking sites did not go unnoticed. Employees of an Internet start up recognized the potential behind social networking sites and, in a matter of days, created a website they called MySpace.