It is more difficult to prosecute a crime committed on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks based in the United States in Spanish sites as Myspace because they respond to different laws and that their cooperation with the National Police differs. Crimes committed in social networks respond to these types of crimes in real life (coercion, threats, insults, identity theft), but take place in a new setting and the authorities are faced with various obstacles to clarify them. One of them is the territorial application of the laws: an Internet company, despite operating in tens or hundreds of countries, responds to the laws of the State where it has based its social base.
The head of social networks of the National Police, Carlos Fernandez Guerra, explained that this situation makes it difficult to prosecute the same offense on Facebook and Twitter-that meet California law, which in Myspace. Fernandez Guerra has argued that the police maintained a partnership “directly and fully” with the Spanish social network, while the cooperation of Facebook is “much slower” and Twitter, almost nonexistent, and that even has a European headquarters.
The legal responsibility of Myspace, Oscar married, has reported that in addition to a competitive disadvantage for companies, territorial application of laws creates a problem for European citizens see their rights cannot be protected in Europe, but by laws California Privacy and Security that are “too vague”. Facebook has refused to make any assessment. Rafael Achaerandio, social networking expert at IDC, believes that national and international law will be strengthened in an average period of time because online “much remains to be regular” and “the law does not fall short” to address the new realities.
Today, the European Union is working on the reform of the European Data Protection , 1995 – to ensure that European standards are applied to any company that offers its services to EU citizens, although the processing of data personal or other countries. These regulations also urge companies to notify the “national supervisory body” any serious violation of data “as soon as possible” and will include a new directive on data transmissions for judicial and police cooperation.
In addition to legislation, anonymity is another impediment to the prosecution of crimes in the network. The legal expert has acknowledged that Myspace hide behind a pseudonym “give wings” to commit a crime and that technology sometimes difficult to identify people. To curb the excesses, social networks have self-regulation: thus, the users can report irregularities and abuses.
Tuenti receives an average of 15,000 reports of misconduct and has a team that decides, depending on the seriousness of the situation, if mediate between users or go directly to the police. Facebook has a similar system. Another element of self-regulation is the attitude of the user to interact and be exposed on social networks.
The social networking expert, IDC has criticized that the Internet is not more careful when posting personal information when they are not aware of who can use it and why and reprimanded them for accepting conditions of use “draconian”. “We have prostituted our data, we have reported our information to the world for free. This information has commercial value, companies pay big money for consumers to understand,” he argued. It has also warned that “we can get an idea of malicious applications” that can give the data s ” As the network matures , there will be more troubling cases that will make society politicians act and regulation.”