Gangs take it to the next level and stage violence on social media, but the police are watching their every tweet, according to MSN News.
With social media increasingly becoming part of our everyday lives, gangs and the police are capitalizing on its reach, the report said.
Street gang members are using Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to brag, conspire, and incite violence. They flaunt their guns, wad cash, threaten rival gang members, and in some cases, they use it to sell guns, drugs or plot murder.
As a result, the Chicago Police Department are keeping eye on them - on social media as well.
"What's taking place online is what's taking place in the streets," David Pyrooz, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University who has studied gangs and social media in five big cities, told MSN News. "The Internet does more for a gang's brand or a gang member's identity than word-of-mouth could ever do. It really gives the gang a wide platform to promote their reputations. They can brag about women, drugs, fighting ... and instead of boasting to five gang members on a street corner, they can go online and it essentially goes viral. It's like this electronic graffiti wall that never gets deleted."
The police's response is also seminal. Police and prosecutors are implementing "cyberbanging" or "Internet banging," in which they pursue criminal elements on social media using traditional investigative methods applied to cyberspace. Sometimes the police would communicate with gang members using aliases to track the gangs' activities and rivalries, the report said.
However, law enforcement agencies tracking street gang activities recognize that what they do is a formidable task. Separating real threats from idle boasts is difficult with millions of images and words found on social media sites. Although Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the most popular sites for gangs, they also turn to Instagram, Snapchat, Kik, Chirp.
"It's kind of like clothing - this is the style today but in two months, it won't be," Alex Del Toro, program director at one of the branches of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago's Youth Safety and Violence Prevention program, told MSN News.
Street gang language is also posing obstacles to police investigators. The language varies from city to city and the meanings may not be the same. For example, guns are referred to as a thumper or a cannon in Chicago, but In Houston, it' called a burner, chopper, pump or gat. In New York, guns are called flamingoes, drum set, clickety, biscuit, shotty, rachet or ratty.
