Essay On Advantages And Disadvantages Of Social Media

1153 Words3 Pages

1.0 Introduction.

Media is a means of communication with the intent to influence a wide audience. This includes but is not limited to newspapers, television news casters, and most recently, social media. Social media is defined as forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (Merriam-Webster, 2014). Many say that social media is a useful tool to combat crime which encompasses violent and property crime. Violent crime is when someone hurts, attempts to hurt, threatens to harm or even conspires to harm someone else, whereas property crime is when someone spoils, destroys or steals someone else's property, such as stealing a car or vandalizing a building (Montaldo, 2014). Police statistics showed that compared with 6,244 cases for the whole of 2012, there were 4,436 violent cases for the first nine months of 2013 in Malaysia alone (Zachariah, E. 2014). The aim of this investigation is to see whether social media aids the police in catching criminals or in fact, hinders them.

Figure 1. 73% of U.S adults use social media websites. (Tech Crunch, 2014)
2.0 Advantages and Disadvantages of Social media.
2.1 Advantages of the Social Media.
2.1.1 Helps to spread information.
Police departments can use social media as a means of real time communication to citizens which can spread information quicker than sending out notices or television broadcasts. It is also an electronic route for citizens to give suggestions, provide tips and ask questions to their local law enforcement officers without personally going to the police station or approaching an officer. For example, in 2011 Kentucky State Police...

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... him in over a month (Sanchez, R., 2013).
3.0 Conclusion.
In conclusion, there is no doubt that social media does have its benefits when it comes to seeking justice but law enforcement must take into account its flaws before acting on information gleaned from it. Anyone involved in law enforcement in any way, whether they are police or judges or jurors, should proceed with the appropriate caution when using social media as evidence of a person’s guilt or innocence for the consequences of not doing so has far-reaching effects not only on the defendant but also on future cases. As my report has shown however, majority of citizens do get their information from social media and do think it helps. Personally, I think social media is here to stay and law enforcement should utilize it to its full potential while remembering that it is a double edged sword.
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