Gang members have begun using Twitter to organize meetings and set up fights. In New York City gang members are being apprehended through their own tweets. NYC officers are keeping a close eye on how gang members are utilizing Twitter. Cops are using Twitter to tweet messages directly to gang members in order track them down. The city has already had their first violence facilitated through Twitter in which a boy was shot in a leg. Officers in the case seem to believe that the accident happened because of a battle between gangs that originated on Twitter. But officers aren’t the only ones taking actions to crackdown on these gang members.

The New York Daily News spoke to Harlem pastor Vernon Williams, of Perfect Peace Ministry Youth Outreach—an organization uses Twitter, MySpace and instant messaging to keep track of 4,000 at-risk teens. Williams told The New York Daily news

“Twitter helped the volunteers stop a street war after they saw the Get Money Boys, based in the St. Nicholas Houses on W. 127 St., exchanging threats with Goodfellas and The New Dons, based just a few blocks north. "They were threatening to go and hurt two people," said Williams who sent staff out to find the tweeters.”

In Britain inmates are able to create Facebook accounts. Times Online brought to light a profile on Facebook that was being updated daily by a gang member while in prison.

“In one posting, Gunn, 42, said: “I will be home one day and I can’t wait to look into certain people’s eyes and see the fear of me being there.” In another message he wrote: “It’s good to have an outlet to let you know how I am, some of you will be in for a good slagging, some have let me down badly, and will be named and shamed, f****** rats.”

After Times Online brought this profile to officials they had no choice but to delete the account. This isn’t the first case in which social networking sites have been used to crack down on someone. Facebook helped police detain a group of high school kids who chatted about blowing up their school.
 

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