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NEWS > TECHNOLOGY > FACEBOOK RAPIDLY BECOMING A HITMAN’S PARADISE
FACEBOOK RAPIDLY BECOMING A HITMAN’S PARADISE
February 11 2011
Bogota, Colombia – There have been a number of stories in recent years of people being harmed by those they have met on the internet. Often those stories involve teenagers who, infatuated with the ideas that run through teenager’s heads, are 
drawn into the clutches of deceptive sexual predators. Recently the case of the ‘Craigslist Killer’ has shown that such dangers are real for adults as well as children and that although such cases might be rare, they are still out there and the threat is real.
Few studies have been done on such online predation and the few that have explored the idea have not shown a major increase in overall number of cases, meaning that all in all such cases would have occurred with or without the internet. However, that does not mean that the rise of social networking sites cannot play a role in tragic cases. Facebook for example, which relies on personal information, has come under fire for its privacy controls and decreasing emphasis on personal privacy. That has led to largely unfounded fears that the site will become a breeding ground for predators and as appears to be the case in Colombia, those fears have a basis in reality. Over the course of a week and half 3 people whose names were found on a hit list posted on Facebook have turned up dead leading many to assume that the site is now firmly under the control of organized crime.
“We do not know who placed these names on the Facebook or why the names are on
it. It is still not clear, this is a part of the investigation,” Colombian national police spokesman Wilson Baquero told CNN. “There is a gang active in the region which is executing violent actions, resolving community conflicts, imposing living and conduct norms, intimidating and meting punishment against ... drug sellers and consumers, sex workers, people with criminal and unlawful histories and threatening social leaders, business people, taxi drivers and motorcycle taxi drivers. They also have computer access which puts them high on the list of suspects.”
The government has offered a reward of 5 million pesos for information on the killings.
“Criminals do two things very well; they respond to new dynamics well and they
recognize where victims gather. This is a basic rule for any predator. They need to assess situations quickly and seek out the weakest members of a group. This is true when lions seek food and true when criminals seek victims, it is their nature,” said Scrape TV Technology analyst Ken Kevins. “The technology itself is not to blame, it is merely a tool they utilize to find and affect victims. They would use some other resource if that one were not available. That said Facebook is the perfect tool for this kind of action. Frankly, if I were to start committing crimes I would look to something like Facebook to draw people in and that might be what’s happening here.”
Founder Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly spent a number of weeks in South America in his youth, though not Colombia specifically.
“Because of the upside of something like Facebook, literally billions of dollars, I think it’s unlikely that they would have gotten involved in something like organized crime. There is already all kinds of money to be made and so trying to get a little extra seems a little silly, especially when you could compromise everything else,” continued Kevins. “Of course they might have no choice. When there is money flowing there will always be criminals and they might have gotten in early on the ground floor and gotten a chunk of the company. In those early days they weren’t making any money and so you have to wonder how they were staying afloat. Makes you think.”
Zuckerberg has long denied that his company is involved with organized crime.
Martin Philton, Technology Correspondent
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