FACEBOOK CRIME AWARENESS AND VICTIMIZATION AMONG CRIMINOLOGY AND SECURITY STUDIES UNDERGRADUATES IN A NIGERIAN PUBLIC UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Like many other technological inventions in human history, the social media is employed by deviant and criminal elements to facilitate various kinds of illegal activities. This study therefore, examines the level of Facebook crime awareness and victimization among undergraduates. It used purposive sampling method to select 120 Criminology and Security Studies undergraduates enrolled in a public owned university in Nigeria. A 33-item questionnaire containing dichotomous, multiple choice, and open-ended questions was administered to the respondents. Descriptive statistics such as frequency (counts) percentages, and tables were used to describe the relationship between the variables.  The study found that 98.3%, 96.7%, 93.3%, 89.2% and 79.2 % of the respondents were aware of harassment/treat/intimidation; hate speech propagation, posting of hostile materials/false information, password theft/Facebook account hijack and live streaming of crime/violence on Facebook respectively. It also found that 42.5% and 36.7% of the respondents believed that people preferred Facebook to physical space to perpetrate crime to avoid detection and physical confrontation respectively. Furthermore, the study found that 36.7%, 60.8%, 28.3%, 55.0% and 29.2% of the respondents had been repeatedly harassed/threatened/intimidated, received unwanted sexual advances, had false information posted about them, had pornographic comment or picture posted on their timeline, had their password stolen/hijacked through Facebook respectively. More so, 62.5% of the respondents believed that Facebook censorship can help curb the menace of crime on Facebook in Nigeria. The continuous enhancement of privacy setting by Facebook to make it difficult for criminals to carry out unauthorized activities on users account is recommended.