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By 11 February 2010 | Categories: news

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We recently reported that almost half of UK cellphone internet traffic is accounted for by Facebook users. It is only logical then that Facebook is used for more than good natured networking, as the BBC reports that UK prisoners are accessing the social networking site via cellphones to taunt victims. According to UK Justice Secretary Jack Straw, 30 offending accounts have been removed by Facebook in 48 hours.

 
"I'm afraid we're dealing with crooks. Devious, manipulative people who actually have no respect for their own bodies so they push these mobile telephones into their body orifices," said Straw. Special body scanning chairs in prisons are suppose to prevent prisons from smuggling cellphones. 
 
Convicted criminals, such as the aptly named Nottingham gangster Colin Gunn, used Facebook to post an update about how he can't wait to see the fear in the people's eyes when he gets home. More recently escaped British burglar Craig "Lazie" Lynch (pictured) posted pictures of himself on Facebook taunting the police, as he was about to enjoy a Christmas turkey. It bought him 15 minutes of internet fame, attracting as much as 40 000 followers to his fan page, but his Facebook days are over since being arrested in January after four months on the run.

Families Utd., a UK based organisation that offers support to the families of victims of youth violence, recently asked for the introduction of an e-ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order) to prevent on-line bullying and dangerous or inflammatory propaganda to be spread by means of social networking. "We think that the policing of the social network sites can be left to the websites themselves but that this should be subject to review and that the authorities should be able to give the names and any information relevant to the sentenced criminal such as nick names etc to the website management so that regular searches can be undertaken to make sure that anyone with an e-ASBO placed on them is not using the site," an update on their website stated.

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