For a while now, we internet watchers have mostly seen examples of how Twitter can get you in trouble — sure, we all know in a general way that your Facebook wall and tagged pictures can get you into hot water if your boss sees them, but people don't seem to screw up as spectacularly on FB. That's probably because celebrities, who have just the right combination of notoriety and instability, are much more choosey when it comes to Facebook than Twitter. That's the whole point of Twitter, really: to let everyone know what you're thinking. But if you're Drake, you probably want to keep that photo album of you, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and the cast of Mad Men partying in Saint-Tropez private.
But! It looks like even we plebs can get into such headline-grabbing screw ups! And if this story's any indication, we should all take a lesson from Drake: don't accept randos as friends. Because they might be a young cop, and you might be a member of the Brooklyn gang the Brower Boys, and you are posting status updates about your robbery plans, I guess? Dumb, dumb, dumb:
[Police Officer Michael Rodrigues] friended several alleged members of the Brower Boys gang through the social-networking site, then quietly kept an eye on posts where they recklessly crowed that it was “break-in day on the avenue."
“He was able to track their next moves,” Kelly said.
The Facebook posts, Rodrigues said, “were basically about going out to make money.”
All in all, fourteen members of the gang were arrested after committing over a dozen break-ins in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights.
Let's all learn from their lesson: don't accept that friend request from Jasmyn Roxxx, because she just wants to talk with you on this really cool chat site, and all she needs is your credit-card number. Don't accept that friend request from the person with your exact name, because all they did was friend everyone with that name and you don't want to read their status updates about fro-yo and how Friends is like their fav show evar lol. And lastly, don't accept that friend request from Michael Rodrigues, because he'll bust your ass. (Unless you're not a criminal, in which case it's probably fine.)