Facebook
has added sleuthing to its array of data-mining capabilities, scanning
your posts and chats for criminal activity. If the social-networking
giant detects suspicious behavior, it flags the content and determines
if further steps, such as informing the police, are required.
Facebook’s software focuses on conversations between members who have
a loose relationship on the social network. For example, if two users
aren’t friends, only recently became friends, have no mutual friends,
interact with each other very little, have a significant age difference,
and/or are located far from each other, the tool pays particular
attention.
The scanning program looks for certain phrases found in previously
obtained chat records from criminals, including sexual predators
(because of the Reuters story, we know of at least one alleged child
predator who is being brought before the courts as a direct result of
Facebook’s chat scanning). The relationship analysis and phrase material
have to add up before a Facebook employee actually looks at
communications and makes the final decision of whether to ping the
authorities.
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