Somewhere in the Chicago Police Department, someone spends more time on YouTube and Twitter than you do.
Social networks and content-sharing sites have made it easier than ever for would-be criminals to sell stolen goods online, harass people, or organize a mob like the ones that besieged the Loop last month. But it's also easier for police officials to keep track of those activities and make arrests-if not outright stop potential crimes before they happen.
The Chicago Police Department is among a number of agencies around the country tapping into social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to fight crime. But don't expect the police to tell you much about it.
"I just can't risk giving a blueprint of our investigative techniques to the people who are causing violence in the city," said Nicholas Roti, chief of CPD's organized crime bureau, which conducts long-term criminal investigations into illegal gang activities and narcotic sales-with and without digital tools.
Besides, he said, a successful investigation never is as simple as clicking "follow" or "friend."
"People think the government is listening to everyone, they think everything is 'CSI': big rooms with giant computer screens where you can press a button and get all the info you need," he said. But "99 percent of police work is still just good, old-fashioned police work."
Chicago officials wouldn't say how many CPD employees monitor social media, which sites they frequent, or even whether there is a dedicated social media team at headquarters, reasoning that revealing even a few successful practices could compromise ongoing investigations.
Social media experts say police around the country are using common networking sites both to engage the public about safety concerns and potential witnesses and suspects, and to keep watch over known gang members and criminals. Some agencies are able to use fake profiles to "friend" suspects and learn about their activities and whereabouts, while others use their official accounts to get the word out about troubling events.
High-profile events such as the Boston Marathon bombings in April highlight the multiple roles social media can play in investigations, experts say, but there also are pitfalls. For example, when police officials shared photos of the suspected bombers with the public, a flurry of Reddit users publicly misidentified multiple people as bombers. In the minutes and hours after the bombing, Twitter became a source of both key information and confusion.
"People were tweeting that they just heard a bomb, so law enforcement could quickly identify whom they needed to reach out to for a very quick witness pool," said Bill Hatfield, a manager at LexisNexis who has researched the use of social media in investigations.
But a key takeaway from Boston is to be very, very careful with what you post, said Hanson Hosein, who runs the digital media program at the University of Washington.
"If you just provide loose information, like saying, 'Here's a murky picture of a suspect,' then you have a witch hunt on your hands, especially as we saw with sites like Reddit and Twitter," he said. "You don't put up a cloudy photo and say, 'That's it.'"
But if you know where to look after a big event unfolds, Hosein said, evidence is everywhere.
"In the past couple of years of deep penetration of smartphone usage in the [U.S.], everyone has a camera with them," he said. "You have people essentially going live with their phones, taking video from crime scenes."
Just as easily as people use social media to document crimes, criminals could use it to orchestrate them. In Chicago, one of the most recent and most discussed examples of this took place in March, when dozens of teenagers allegedly used Twitter to organize a mob-like rampage through the Loop and North Michigan Avenue. Other such incidents have been reported in the past. Since then, Gov. Quinn signed legislation that authorizes longer prison sentences for criminals who use social media to organize illegal activity.
Roti said the department has used a variety of policing tactics-which likely include social media monitoring-to head off incidents like those so-called "wildings" before they happen.
There is some disagreement among law enforcement officials and social media experts about the extent to which criminals are using social network sites to actually commit crimes. But they will turn to sites such as Twitter and Instagram for clues into what happened after a crime occurs. For example, Chicago-born rapper Keith Cozart, who goes by Chief Keef, came under scrutiny after he appeared to mock one of his rivals, a teenager called Lil JoJo, on Twitter hours after he was shot and killed. Cozart said his account was hacked. Months later, police officials said they were scrutinizing Cozart's Facebook account, which was used to taunt a street gang about another shooting.
Another phenomenon Chicago police pay close attention to, Roti said, is known as "cybergangbanging."
"It's like the new graffiti," he said. "In cyber, you're posting things and dissing another gang, like saying, 'I'm a Latin King, and I'm going to kill every 2-6er,' going back and forth. It all gives law enforcement an idea of what's going on the street."
But don't expect all beat cops to take up tweeting and Facebooking to fight crime.
"Whatever sources of information that we can find to be valid we use to push along our investigations," Roti said. "Human sources of intelligence are still the best sources of intelligence."