Quote:
Originally Posted by RichardCoulter
Just found out that there's an interesting situation at the moment between the police and lawyers. The police monitor forums, social networking sites, chat rooms, blogs etc.
Sometimes they do this covertly by using a non police registered ip address- lawyers are questioning the use of legislation regarding covert operations and this practice.
Also, lawyers are arguing that views expressed that are not intended for public consumption (even if they are accessible to the public) should not be treated as such.
A blog is defined as being intended for public consumption, whereas they argue that a facebook comment isn't (even if the persons privacy settings do allow the public to access to the material).
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Recently I used to work for a government department and our internet presence was randomly monitored. If we put the name of our organisation on our Facebook profiles anything we said on our FB wall, status etc was considered 'fair game' for an inquiry if it was deemed controversial etc whereas if we identified ourselves on a public forum there was less potential for further action to be taken. The rational behind this was on a forum we are just one out of hundreds, possibly thousands whereas on Facebook the page was considered to be US, OURS etc, the comparison was a like a forum being us standing in an open crowd giving our views but FB was inviting someone in to our homes and then saying our bit.
This is why I never disclosed online who I worked for, far too much potential for unwarranted hassle.