Facebook has agreed to help California prisons take down inmates’ illegal pages, but the company says the state’s best bet is to keep contraband cellphones out of prisoners’ hands.
“If a state has decided that prisoners have forfeited their right to use the Internet, the most effective way to prevent access is to ensure prisons have the resources to keep smartphones and other devices out,” said company spokesman Andrew Noyes. “We will disable accounts reported to us that are violating relevant U.S. laws or regulations or inmate accounts that are updated by someone on the outside.”
On Monday, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation administrators announced that they have started reporting inmate pages to Facebook’s security team.