If you thought getting in trouble for browsing Facebook at work was bad, a recent study the be Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) found that hundreds of South Carolina inmates are placed in solitary confinement for using social media.

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, the EFF discovered that there have been over 400 disciplinary cases over the last three years in South Carolina for inmates who illegally accessed social networking sites, especially Facebook, while they were imprisoned.

The South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) issues a separate violation for each day that the inmate accesses social networking sites, which has led to unusually harsh punishments. One inmate allegedly received a sentence of over 37 years in isolation solely for accessing social media. The SCDC is frequently forced to suspend some of these sentences because they are so outrageously long.

The uneven system punishes inmates more by day than by offense. An inmate who makes one status  update several days in a row will receive a harsher sentence than an inmate who makes 100 updates in a single day.

Dave Maas, media relations coordinator for the EFF and author of the study, wrote, “If a South Carolina inmate caused a riot, took three hostages, murdered them, stole their clothes, and then escaped, he could still wind up with fewer Level 1 offenses than an inmate who updated Facebook every day for two weeks.”

Facebook “acting as a government censor”

According to the EFF, Facebook Inc. collaborates with the SCDC to remove inmates’ profiles from the social network, but they do it without any form of transparent paper trail to show what sort of requests they receive or why they comply with them.

“Facebook really shouldn’t be acting as a government censor,” Maas told CNET. “There’s lots of legitimate reasons why a prisoner should want to contact the outside world, whether that’s bringing attention to prison conditions or information about his case, or communicating with his own family.”

Maas noted that one man, Tyheem Henry, lost 74 years of visitation and telephone access “all for 38 posts on Facebook.”

photo credit: Prison cells via photopin (license)