Secret identity blown after plea on Facebook - Metro
The story on Facebook was very touching. A father published a photo of his missing children and asked for help finding them. And thousands helped sharing the post and finally one person recognized the children and let him know where to find them.
The missing information was that the woman was living under protection and with a new identity after leaving the man. Now he found out where she was. She was forced to move again – to a women’s shelter.
“The worst case scenario is that you contribute to someone being beaten, raped or killed. You have to think twice before sharing this type of searches for missing people on Facebook”, says Lotta Sonemalm, at The Swedish Association of Women’s Shelters and Young Women’s Empowerment Centres , (SKR).
Women who are given protected identities all live under threat.
“It can be violence in close relationships, criminal gangs that you wish to leave and women who have been subjected to honour violence”, Lotta Otterdal, at Frida Women’s Shelter told radio show P4 Extra.
Swedish police also warns against sharing posts about missing people on social media.
“If a person living under a protected identity has their whereabouts revealed it result in catastrophic consequences for the person in question,” says criminal investigator Anders Ahlqvist to magazine Dagens Juridik.
I know that “help find this missing person!” posts are popular on Tumblr (especially accompanied by guilt-tripping) but this gives important food for thought.
i never ever EVER reblog missing people posts because of this reason