Criminal defense tips: Are you posting incriminating information on social media?

If you use the Internet, there's already information about you online and on your computer that could be used as evidence in any number of crimes. To access information on a personal computing device, law enforcement agents generally need warrants. But in the meantime, there's nothing stopping them from checking out your public online activity and what it may reveal to them.

January 2014 data from the Pew Research Center shows that an estimated 74% of adults use social media sites; even for adults in the age group of 65 and older, close to half of them are engaged with social networking platforms such as Facebook.

What kinds of online posts could either serve as evidence for a crime or call police attention to you? The following are several examples:

• -Posts in which you mention what you did, sharing text or images related to a given crime.
• -Posts in which you inadvertently reveal a criminal act (e.g. a photo of yourself doing something that could constitute child endangerment or a selfie of you driving with an open container of alcohol next to you).
• -Posts that provide a timeline for a certain day and where you might have been at any given point.
• -Any threats you've published online, particularly towards specific people.
• -Connections you have with people who have been arrested for a crime.
• -Comments made by family, friends, acquaintances, or strangers who follow you. One of them may respond to a post by writing about what you allegedly did or may send a tip-off to police regarding one of your posts.

Not everything you post to social media could be used as conclusive evidence against you. But it could help form a larger picture of who you are and what you might have done. When you contact us for legal advice and representation, one of the criminal defense tips we'll give you is to be more cautious about what you post online. Furthermore, if you're concerned about something you've already shared on a social media platform, be sure to discuss it with us.