How Prisoners Are Using Facebook to Harass Victims

[asoneill]

Most of Facebook's 400 million members use the social-networking site to reconnect with long lost pals and keep in touch with friends and family. But dozens of prisoners in Britain have found a more sinister and predatory use for Facebook: after they've been locked up for offenses such as murder and assault, inmates are taunting and terrorizing

Comments

[lied_ohne_worte]

Would this work, though? It's not as if people need to provide their real personal information registering accounts, and you can't start having the sites monitor everything anyone posts anywhere. They need to rely on people reporting wrongdoers. And even if someone is reported, it's really hard to ban them permanently, because pretty much any ban can be circumvented. In my opinion, it's primarily up to prisons to prevent people from accessing these sites. I suppose they could provide the sites with their facilities' IP addresses so they could be globally blocked, but there are ways to get around that.

[condenast]

Nah, the amount of time some douche has change his name to Fredrich Von Asswipe on my news feed is ridic.

[lied_ohne_worte]

Well, they might need a full name, but I don't think they would even try to verify whether the name you give is your real one. When I register on sites that want the full name (sometimes for freeware downloads and other things that don't really need it), I usually use my mother's maiden name because my own firstname-lastname combination is completely unique and I don't think they need my full name.

[chaeri]

The site could simply block IP addresses originating in correctional facilities.

[lied_ohne_worte]

Nah, that would not work.

1) If they use a normal computer, they can go through a proxy that gives them another IP address

2) If they use a mobile phone, they don't go through the facility's IP address at all.

[chaeri]

Ah true

[nrchst]

Yikes. Sites self policing themselves would be way too much responsibility. If they knew criminals were doing this, I doubt they'd be so inclined/open to the idea of them signing up in the first place.