by: Matt Rhodes
We know that Facebook has seen staggering growth in 2008. Reports in January of this year showed that every 20 days, Facebook is adding another 10 million users. We know that it’s not just college kids on Facebook anymore, with 276% growth since October 2007 in members aged 35-54. We even know that people are now having to deal with their parents and even their boss befriending them on Facebook.
In recent weeks it seems that the Italian authorities have begun investigating groups on Facebook that are discussing the Mafia, and in particular Mafia bosses including Salvatore Riina, the ‘boss of bosses’, who was arrested in 1993 after more than two decades on the run. They think that those joining these groups may have more than just a passing interest in the Mafia, may be more than just fans. They think that the membership of these groups may include some Mafia members themselves.
It’s not a surprise that people would use Facebook to start groups about the Mafia and Mafia leaders – we know that social networks are a great place to find people with other interests. I’m sure there are many online communities devoted to the Mafia as we know that niche groups benefit from online communities. What may seem more surprising is that members of the Mafia are willing to identify themselves by joining such groups. We’ve written before about how you need to be careful what you say in Facebook. You also need to be careful what you do.
Social networks can seem like very private spaces – you build networks of friends and share things with them. Most people know that their actions may also seen by the rest of the members of the site, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that. When you and your friends are discussing something in a group you can forget that anybody else can see this. Including the Italian Police.
So I’m not surprised the Mafia are on Facebook, and for me that’s a real sign of mass adoption and acceptance of this social networks as a tool. People are using it for their own particular purposes, to connect with friends or to express their support or solidarity for a cause. One of the problems we are going to have to accept and then deal with as social media tools grow in popularity is that people will use them for things that we didn’t necessarily intend them to be used for in the first place. Facebook was originally a way for college friends to stay in touch. It may now be being used by criminal gangs to, at the very least, express their support or solidarity for a cause.
How we deal with this matters. The change in usage is a powerful form of innovation, really it is co-creation with users of the site finding the ways it can best support them. This will mean that new uses will develop with every new user that joins. Some will gain mass popularity and others will be restricted to just one or two users. You can control what is discussed in groups or on profiles by enforcing the terms and conditions of the site, but with a membership as vast as Facebook this will only get more difficult to do. But there is always another way of looking at a situation.
So the Mafia is on Facebook. Perhaps this is a good thing after all. Rather than tapping phones or reading emails, the Italian Police had a ready-made list of people to watch and conversations to follow. They just need to join the same groups and see who their new friends are.
Some more reading
- Rome Journal: Facebook ‘Fans’ of the Mafia May Be More, Authorities Say (nytimes.com)
- You Have Requested To Add Michael Corleone As A Friend (techdirt.com)
- Little Italian mafia worshippers on Facebook stir anti-movement (thenextweb.com)
- Mafia bosses prove a hit on Facebook (telegraph.co.uk)
- World Briefing | Europe: Mafia Finds Fans on Facebook (nytimes.com)
- Popular Facebook Fan Page Calls for Sainting a Mobster (allfacebook.com)
Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/02/now-even-the-mafias-on-facebook/
