Hostage to #social

Here’s another use for social media: hostage negotiation.

According to a HuffPo post, just a few days ago a Pittsburgh with a hammer and kitchen knife used his hostage’s computer to post complaints to Facebook, and police had to scramble to get the perp to focus.

That meant deflecting about 700 posts from 22-year-old Klein Michael Thaxton’s family and friends that could mess with the hostage-negotiator’s goal of reducing the emotionality and raising the rationality of a hostage taker.

And things like “W00t!” And “Dude—post video, man!” are counterproductive in that regard.

Lest you think this is an isolated incident, evidently Utah is a hotbed of Facebooking hostage takers and victims. (Haven't heard of anyone making ransom demands via Twitter, yet; but I'm sure that's on the way.)

What this means is that law enforcement around the world now have to incorporate social media strategies into their take-down plans.

This could get interesting.