Facebook user data sought in Vernal police investigation of offensive posts


3 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

VERNAL — Police have asked Facebook to help identify a group of people who investigators believe used bogus screen names to post offensive content on a Facebook yard sale page.

The content uploaded to the Vernal Yard Sale page in late April included threats of violence, pornographic images and posts that promoted the sexual exploitation of children, Assistant Vernal Police Chief Keith Campbell said Tuesday. The posts were made by people using "an abundance of fictitious names," he said.

"We have narrowed our investigation down to a group of screen names and have sent subpoenas (to Facebook) to obtain identifying information on the suspects," Campbell said.

The Vernal Yard Sale page was an open group with about 12,600 members but no administrator when the offensive posts began showing up. Some of the posts used pictures taken from other people's Facebook pages that were paired with descriptions meant to demean, embarrass or threaten the person in the photo or their family members, according to people who complained to Facebook and to police.

Erin Larson said in April that she became a target of the "trolls" after she tried to defend her cousin from a malicious post on the yard sale page.

"I was sent a private (Facebook) message by a woman, with a picture of my 3-year-old daughter, telling me she was going to sell (my daughter) on all of her sites," Larson said.


I was sent a private (Facebook) message by a woman, with a picture of my 3-year-old daughter, telling me she was going to sell (my daughter) on all of her sites.

–Erin Larson


The anonymous woman was able to grab the picture, even though Larson has her privacy settings dialed down as tight as possible because Larson had used the image as her cover photo on her Facebook page. Shortly after the picture was posted on the yard sale page, other "trolls" started commenting about the little girl in the photo, Larson said.

"They said that my daughter was buried in a backyard or she was in their trunk," the Vernal woman said. "They made multiple comments about her, not just about her being dead, but sexual comments about her."

Larson said she reported the problem to Facebook, but her effort went nowhere.

"I reported every single one of them — and not just the photos — I reported the people, as well as the group. I reported the comments that they made, and Facebook continually told me that it was within their community standards," said Larson, who could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

Campbell said Facebook has "cooperated very well" with detectives during their investigation.

"We were able to get the (yard sale) site shut down," he said, "and get the content removed from the site fairly quickly."

Campbell said people who use social media sites should make sure their security settings are set to limit access to their personal information and photos.

"Once things go up on the Web, that is the World Wide Web and that information cannot be retracted, it cannot be deleted, and unless your settings are correct, everybody has access to it," he said.

Photos

Related stories

Most recent Utah stories

Related topics

Utah
Geoff Liesik

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast