As social media becomes ever more popular, the policing of online activity is becoming more difficult. It’s a lot to monitor, but police are also using it as a tool to educate young people on the dangers inherent in some online activity.
On May 24, Lethbridge police surrounded an apartment complex on the city’s west side after disturbing comments were posted on social media.
“I am about to start kicking in doors in this building and throw people head first out through their windows,” reads one of the tweets.
Police resolved the situation safely, but said it highlights how social media is changing how police fight crime.
“For us especially, the majority of our investigations have some Internet or some social media element to them,” said Brent Brusse, of the LPS community resource unit.
Brussee educates kids about social media.
“I’ve been in this unit for five years,” Brussee said. “You always have the option to exit out of a conversation. You don’t have to contribute into what it may become in the end. We tell kids all the time: ‘Don’t have people on your social media apps that you’ve never met in real life.’”
One of the more common issues Brussee sees in schools is the sending of illegal photos.
“We find that from Grade 6 and up, there’s a mass exchange of naked photos. From both ways: girls to boys, boys to girls,” Brussee said. “It seems as though this generation accepts that as being somewhat normal. So we have to educate them that this is actually child pornography. You may be distributing child pornography or making it.”
Brussee also says as of now, the Internet is an unpoliced environment and isn’t monitored.
“As far as people just kind of sitting, watching and seeing what they can find out that is criminal in nature, at this point in time, we don’t have that,” Brussee said. “Not just in Lethbridge, but the entire world.”
They don’t monitor everything, but if police seize a phone as part of an investigation, they have an incredibly useful device. The UFED Touch2 is used three or four times a day by LPS and downloads all information off electronic devices.
“Anything that’s even been deleted, things that have been hidden—this has the ability to bring that back,” Brussee said.
In terms of criminal charges for threats made on social media, the comment must fall within the Criminal Code.
“It has to be to cause bodily harm or death to that person (is what we would charge people on) as far as uttering a threat,” Brussee said.
Brussee hopes one day that police can monitor criminal activity on social media and the Internet, but admits the resources it would take would be immense.
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