We live in the
age of social media where much of our communication occurs through sites such
as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.
Phone calls and letters have been replaced by tweets, snapchats and
status updates and our lives are lived for the world to see. While such sites keep us connected and enable
the type of instantaneous communication and access to information that was
previously unattainable, social media has now become a vehicle for something
much more sinister. Increasingly social
media is being used to intimidate victims, witnesses and criminal informants. On November, 12, 2013, seventeen year old high
school student Nasheen Anderson from East German Town, Pennsylvania was arrested and charged with witness intimidation and terroristic threats.
Philadelphia police arrested the teen after he was linked to a Twitter account
that named witnesses in several 2012 shootings and a June 2007 homicide. The Twitter account contained pictures of
sealed court documents. One photo had
the caption “EXPOSE ALL RATS” written below it. Police believe that Anderson may also be
behind the “rats215” Instagram account, which has since been shut down. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, this
account revealed the identities of more than thirty witnesses to violent crimes
in Philadelphia and also contained pictures, police statements and witness
testimonies.
