This week's post deals with an article from fastcompany.com about prison inmates in the U.K. that were busted using facebook to continue their criminal activities from the inside. The article, written by Tyler Bray, can be found here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1547737/facebook-pulls-30-inmate-pages-uk-colin-gunn
British prisons place restrictions on inmates internet activity by blocking social networking sites and limiting internet usage. Some prisons don't allow any acces at all. Inmates have found a way around these restrictions by having cell phones smuggled in to the prisons and using the phones to access the internet. The inmates were then using Facebook to send threatening messages to their victims and accusers from jail. In a joint effort with the British government, Facebook has pulled the pages of 30 inmates.
One infamous prisoner, Nottingham gangster Colin Gunn, who is serving a 35 year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder psoted threatening messages directed to the people that put him in prison. Gunn was also the focus of a scandal that centered around a website that Gunn had set up, while in prison, to change his public image and discredit the press reports about him. the site can be found here: http://www.colingunn.net/. Police have since restricted Gunn's access to the internet so he must send letters to friends who then update his site.
Facebook spokesperson, Sophy Silver, issued this response to the AP:
"The World Wide Web can be a wild and unruly place. Facebook tries to put some rules and protocols on top of the unruly Web."
