SOCIAL networking sites Facebook and Twitter have been mentioned in 25 times more crime reports than five years ago, Cambridgeshire police has revealed.
In the past five years, crimes involving Facebook has risen from 64 in 2008 to 1,654 in 2012, a Freedom of Information request has shown.
The figures also showed that crime reports mentioning Twitter rose from zero in 2008 to 59 last year.
A Cambridgeshire police spokesman said: “It is hard to quantify the actual increase in crimes involving social media.
“It is likely the numbers on the information request relate to those crimefiles which ‘mention’ Twitter or Facebook, for which there could be a range of reasons – witnesses seeing something online, saying they were on a social media site at the time of the offence, had seen heard a rumour on a site, or seen a witness appeal on Facebook/Twitter.
“Obviously, social networking sites have become hugely popular and simply by the sheer number of people using sites such as Twitter and Facebook mean there will be a rise of incidents relating to those sites.”
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here