Is Snapchat the future of organized crime?
Remember when Snapchat was just a dick pic delivery system?
Well, I’m here to tell you that times have changed. While Snapchat is still very much a sexting utopia, it has also proven to be the ideal place to coordinate smash-and-grab style robberies, at least according to police.
While Snapchat is still very much a sexting utopia, it has also proven to be the ideal place to coordinate smash-and-grab style robberies, at least according to police.
Remember the Louis Vuitton robbery in San Francisco or the Nordstrom robbery in Walnut Creek the following day? Well, apparently none of the people participating in the robbery knew each other and it was all set up via Snapchat messages to complete strangers.
The most fascinating part of this whole debacle is it’s next to impossible to find out who the mastermind is or if there is a mastermind at all. According to SFist, the suspects don’t know each other and vary dramatically in age, causing investigative roadblocks for law enforcement.
At least one of the suspects is 53 years old, which impresses the shit out of me. I didn’t know anyone past the age of 30 knew Snapchat existed, nor had the energy to engage with it enough to organize and participate in a whole ass fucking robbery or two. Salute to all the boomer burglars out there.
Snapchat denies any evidence of the app being used for organized crime, but what tech company would want to make crime a part of their selling point? Can you imagine an advertisement for Snapchat that was honest? “Wanna do hoodrat shit with strangers? Maybe send a dickpic without accountability? We’ve got the perfect app for you: Snapchat. No face, no case. Fuck 12.”
There’s something humorous about Snapchat being a central tool in modern organized crime. Imagine if The Sopranos was filmed today. One of the most fascinating aspects of HBO’s crime drama was that it incorporated the early internet into the show. Director David Chase seemed to effortlessly illustrate the effects of modernization, newly available psych meds and highly sophisticated surveillance techniques and how this combination eroded the foundation of Omerta the Mafia was founded upon. Imagine Tony Soprano screaming in someone’s face saying something like “there’s two things we don’t fuckin’ do! We don’t rat and we don’t screenshot snaps,” while presumably pointing a gun at some chubby geriatric Italian gangster in a suit.
And if that happens, and if those tools were to become available to local police departments, it would essentially be the death of the modern internet as we know it.
There is a potential dark side to this situation beyond retail theft that news agencies aren’t reporting on, but this should be considered. If the trend of social media tools being used to orchestrate high-profile criminal activity continues, these incidents could be used to argue for more government oversight into our lives via the internet.
Corporations already have much of our online habits archived in databases to create algorithms that determine what products they can most effectively sell to us. All lawmakers would have to do is create and pass new legislation under the guise of public safety to eliminate any semblance of anonymity that the internet provides. And if that happens, and if those tools were to become available to local police departments, it would essentially be the death of the modern internet as we know it.
This wouldn’t only hurt organized crime, but organization of any kind, including protests, and that’s what scares me the most.
Don’t let the theft of some Louis Vuitton purses or some other designed brand shit you likely can’t afford be used as an excuse to further restrict the freedom of the internet.
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