Two weeks ago I read an article about a manager of a gas station who caught a thief with help from Twitter and Facebook. A guy refuelled his car and drove away without paying for the gas. The manager posted a tweet and a Facebook tweet with the guys’ license plate and a screenshot of the camera images and asked who recognizes the car, license plate and person. The message was retweeted and shared a dozen times. A few people recognized the person and car and the guy is now sued for stealing.
Another gas station manager happened the same thing. He also decided to post a tweet and Facebook message with a screenshot and license plate. Within a few hours he received many phone calls from people recognizing the perpetrator. That same afternoon the phone rang and a man asked the manager whether he could remove the screenshot from the internet because it was violating his privacy. The manager told him that he would remove the screenshot, if he would come by and pay the €96 he owned him. Finally the guy paid the €96 and the manager removed the screenshot.
Both managers recommend doing this, because they think it is way more effective then calling the police. I think it is actually pretty amazing what social media can do. It is so easy to share stuff with so many people at the same time. And of all 16 million people in the Netherlands, within only a few hours there were so many people who recognized these guys. However the question is whether it is allowed to violate people privacy like this.
Do you think that social media should be used more frequently in cases like these, or do you think that peoples’ privacy is more important?
