Of course, Twitter has sub-cultures just like any other group venue. All of us form cliques of friends we hang out with, whether it's online or off. Twitter is no different. Most of us likely have a certain type of friend who use the 140-or-less blogging platform just like you do. Maybe your friends are the more techie types, or the more social my-phone-is-always-in-my-hand types, or even the too-lazy-to-write-a-full-on-email types.
Gangs, when you boil it down, are just another social clique. A little more violent and crime-prone, sure, but it's still just another "jocks" vs "nerds" thing in the end. So why wouldn't they be using Twitter like the rest of us?
I looked into the possibility and found out that these guys are quite active. So are the cops who're tracking them.
In
the summer of 2008, Florida passed a state law (Statute 874-11) called
the "Criminal Gang Prevention Act" which went into effect in October of
that year. The law, specifically 874.11, provides for a third degree
felony for using the Internet to promote criminal gang activity. It's
worded in legaleze, of course, but that's the basic idea.
Then
it turns out that this law was used for the first time only six weeks
after the law went into effect. The Lee County Sheriff's Office
launched Operation Firewall immediately upon the law's passage and it
netted the arrest of 15 individual in just days.
That criminal
case is still underway and the decision made by the judge could decide
whether the law can continue to be used. The question is the law itself
and whether it violate freedom of speech.
So I started looking
to see if there were anything that my (admittedly amateurish knowledge)
could find on Twitter that appeared to be "gang-related" based in
Florida. I went to a couple of my favorite social search tools and
started looking, aiming for Florida-based accounts with common gang
names or titles.
I used LocalFollow, which I've talked about
before. I tried some notable gang names that formed in LA of course,
but it seems only the most dullard of the gangsters actually put those
in their names. So I tried searching content instead.
Now,
again, I'm not an expert, but doing this was enlightening. I found
twenty matches right off the bat and all in South Florida (mainly
Miami, of course). Using the more famous gang names for instance, found
a lot of references. Filtering through those, you can see that they are
usually news or law-enforcement related, but you'll also find some talk
that is decidedly... well, street, I guess.
I tried it with some
other local gangs (pick some random graffiti and do it yourself). These
kids are connected. Of course, those of us who don't speak their
language very well will have a rough time figuring out what all their
tweets mean, but it's possible to at least get the gist of it.
I spoke with Boca Raton's own @bocachief to ask for his thoughts on this and he had this to say:
"Gangs
and other criminal organizations are no different than legitimate
businesses in that they have communication and marketing needs. Social
media outlets like Twitter provide a cheap and effective vehicle for
gangbangers to stay in touch and recruit new members. What is really
interesting is that gang leaders have created more loosely structured
groups in order to avoid prosecution for running organized criminal
enterprises. Social media actually better facilitates gang
communication and management of criminal activity under this new
scenario."
So these gangsters are out there and they are using
Twitter, Facebook, and a lot of other sites to communicate and even
recruit new members. Kind of puts a new meaning on "parental filter."
Eh?
