Guilty by Association? Do You Really Know Who Your Facebook Friends Are?
How digital connections, irresponsible media and careless content can damage innocent people — and why every creator has a responsibility to understand the consequences of pressing “Publish”
I discovered something recently that made me look at my Facebook friends list in a completely different way.
The police can examine your associations.
They can examine online connections and social-media activity as part of legitimate intelligence and investigative work. Police vetting guidance expressly considers friends, people you associate with and other “relevant associates”, while College of Policing material recognises that an association can include communication through social media rather than simply meeting somebody in person. Specialist police internet-intelligence investigators also use social media and other online platforms to support investigations. (College Police Library)
In other words, a person you are connected with through Facebook or other social media can potentially become relevant as an associate or association when somebody is examining relationships and networks.
That does not mean every Facebook friend is automatically regarded by the police as a criminal associate.
It does not mean that knowing somebody makes you responsible for their actions.
It does not mean that being photographed with somebody implicates you in anything they may subsequently do.
But it does mean something that I suspect millions of people have never seriously considered:
Your social-media network is a map of your associations.
And that map can be examined by people who know absolutely nothing about how those connections were originally made.
That should make all of us stop and think.
How many of your Facebook friends do you actually know?
How many have you met?
How many would you recognise if they walked into a room tomorrow?
How many did you accept because you shared an interest?
How many did you meet once at an event?
How many were colleagues 15 years ago?
How many did you accept because you had 50 mutual friends?
And how many are now connected with people you have never met, never heard of and know absolutely nothing about?
Because in today’s digital world, the consequences of association can extend far beyond the relationship you think you have.
The HIV/AIDS-era analogy: the network is bigger than you think
For me, there is an analogy with the old HIV/AIDS-era public-awareness message about sexual relationships.
The principle was simple: when you sleep with one person, you are not dealing solely with that one individual. You are potentially connecting yourself to everybody they have previously slept with, and indirectly to the networks behind them.
I am obviously not comparing criminality with HIV or AIDS.
Nor am I suggesting that relationships themselves are dangerous.
The analogy is purely about networks.
You think you are connected to one person.
That person is connected to hundreds or thousands of others.
Those people are connected to hundreds or thousands more.
The network becomes enormous almost immediately.
Social media has done something unprecedented in human history.
It has created a permanent, searchable and often publicly visible map of our human relationships.
And most of us have spent the last 15 or 20 years constructing that map without ever really considering what we were building.
We thought we were collecting friends.
We were also creating data.
We were creating connections.
We were creating associations.
We were leaving photographs.
Comments.
Tags.
Likes.
Shared events.
Mutual friends.
Old conversations.
And all of those things can potentially be looked at years later by somebody whose reason for looking may be completely different from our reason for creating them.
Facebook has changed the meaning of the word “friend”
Before Facebook, if I told you someone was my friend, you would probably assume that I actually knew them.
Today, that assumption is unreliable.
Imagine four people.
One has been your closest friend for 30 years.
One worked with you briefly in 2009.
One met you for ten minutes at a business conference.
One has never met you at all but sent you a Facebook request because you had 72 mutual connections.
Facebook can use exactly the same word to describe all four relationships:
Friend.
But they are obviously not remotely the same relationship.
Now imagine somebody looking at that connection ten years later.
A police investigator.
A journalist.
An employer.
A political opponent.
A disgruntled customer.
A YouTuber.
A TikTok creator.
A stranger on Facebook.
They don’t necessarily know whether you have known that person for 30 years or 30 seconds.
They see the connection.
Perhaps they find a photograph.
Perhaps they find an old comment.
Perhaps they discover three mutual friends.
Perhaps they discover that you once attended the same event.
Then somebody asks:
“What’s the connection?”
And that is where the real danger begins.
Because there is an enormous difference between an association existing and the meaning somebody chooses to attach to it.
I know this from my own life
I can give very personal examples.
I have sat next to Prince Andrew.
I have had dinner with Prince Andrew.
There are photographs of me with Prince Andrew.
I worked with Jimmy Savile.
I have photographs of myself with many famous people and well-known DJs.
I have photographs with Theresa May.
Over the course of a long life and career, I have met an enormous number of people.
At the moment a photograph was taken, it was simply a photograph.
Perhaps it was a professional event.
Perhaps a social event.
Perhaps a dinner.
Perhaps we worked together.
Perhaps we met once.
But history can subsequently change the meaning that other people attach to that photograph.
The photograph itself has not changed.
The circumstances in which it was taken have not changed.
My relationship with that person has not magically changed.
What has changed is the story surrounding the other person.
And somebody discovering that photograph 10, 20 or 30 years later may look at it through a completely different lens.
They may not know that you met once.
They may not know that you worked in the same industry.
They may not know whether the photograph represents a friendship, a professional engagement or a chance meeting.
They simply see:
Two people together.
That is the problem with digital association.
The connection survives. The context disappears.
Association is not guilt
This should be one of the simplest principles in a civilised society.
Knowing somebody who commits a crime does not make you a criminal.
Working with somebody does not make you responsible for their private behaviour.
Having dinner with somebody does not mean you share their beliefs.
Being photographed with somebody does not mean you approve of everything they have ever done.
Accepting somebody’s Facebook friend request does not mean you know everything about their life.
But watch how easily the progression can happen:
Connection.
Becomes:
Association.
Association becomes:
Suspicion.
Suspicion becomes:
Implication.
And implication, in the court of public opinion, can become:
Guilt.
No trial.
No jury.
No cross-examination.
No proper examination of evidence.
Sometimes not even an allegation against the person being discussed.
Just a connection.
The real danger is not merely the association. It is the storyteller.
This is where I believe the issue becomes much bigger than Facebook.
The association by itself may mean almost nothing.
The real power lies with the person who decides to tell a story about it.
A journalist.
A newspaper.
A broadcaster.
A blogger.
A YouTuber.
A TikTok creator.
Someone posting in a Facebook group.
Someone with ten followers.
Someone with ten million.
Because the media does not merely discover connections.
The media can create meaning around them.
Someone finds a photograph.
Someone discovers a Facebook friendship.
Someone finds an old comment.
Someone notices that two people once worked together.
Then comes the apparently innocent question:
“Is there a connection?”
The question sounds neutral.
But sometimes the implication has already been planted.
One person comments:
“Interesting that they knew each other.”
Someone else says:
“Surely he must have known what was going on.”
Then:
“There’s no way he couldn’t have known.”
And eventually:
“He was involved.”
Look at what has happened.
We have travelled from:
Two people once knew each other.
To:
One person was involved in the actions of the other.
Yet no new evidence has appeared.
Nothing has actually been proved.
The only things that have changed are the interpretation, the repetition and the amplification.
That is an enormous problem in modern media.
We confuse visibility with credibility
Put somebody in front of a television camera.
Put a microphone beneath them.
Add the logo of a respected news organisation.
Suddenly, what they say appears to carry authority.
But a camera does not know whether somebody is telling the truth.
A microphone does not know.
A journalist interviewing someone during a rapidly developing story may not know.
And the audience certainly does not know.
People who subsequently turn out to have lied have appeared on television.
People who subsequently turn out to be guilty have presented themselves publicly as innocent.
People who are completely innocent have appeared in news reports surrounded by suspicion.
That does not necessarily mean the journalist was wrong to interview them.
Journalists often have to report events before all the facts are known.
But we, as an audience, need to understand something fundamental:
Being given a platform is not the same as being validated by evidence.
Appearing on television does not make somebody truthful.
Being interviewed by a respected journalist does not mean the broadcaster endorses every word they say.
Being described as a suspect does not mean somebody is guilty.
Being arrested does not mean somebody will be charged.
Being charged does not mean somebody will be convicted.
And being associated with any of those people proves virtually nothing by itself.
Yet these distinctions can disappear incredibly quickly once a story begins travelling.
The first version of a story has an enormous advantage
This, I believe, is one of the greatest failures of modern media.
The original story is exciting.
The correction usually isn’t.
The accusation is dramatic.
The acquittal may come years later.
The arrest is breaking news.
The decision not to prosecute is a paragraph.
The allegation generates clicks.
The correction becomes administration.
Imagine that five million people see the original television report.
It is dramatic.
It is emotional.
Clips are shared on Facebook.
They are uploaded to YouTube.
TikTok creators discuss them.
Reaction videos appear.
Newspapers quote the original report.
Thousands of people comment.
The story develops a life of its own.
Then the facts change.
The evidence doesn’t support the original implication.
The suspect is released.
No charges are brought.
The defendant is acquitted.
The alleged connection turns out to have been meaningless.
What happens then?
Does every person who saw the original report see the correction?
Of course not.
Does everybody who shared the allegation share the outcome?
No.
Does every content creator who made an outraged video produce another one saying:
“I was wrong”?
Usually not.
Everyone moves on.
Except the person whose reputation was damaged.
They cannot simply move on.
The internet remembers.
Search engines remember.
Screenshots remember.
Social media remembers.
And human beings remember fragments.
Years later, someone may not remember the outcome at all.
They simply remember:
“Wasn’t there something about him?”
That can be enough.
Sir Cliff Richard and the consequences of publicity
The experience of Sir Cliff Richard demonstrates the extraordinary power of publicity surrounding an investigation.
In 2014, the BBC prominently reported and filmed a police search of his home while he was under investigation. In 2016 it was announced that he would not be charged. His subsequent privacy case against the BBC examined the scale and presentation of that coverage; the High Court judgment recorded the enormous national and international publicity generated by the broadcast and the consequences that followed. (Courts and Tribunals Judiciary)
There was no criminal trial.
There was no conviction.
Yet the publicity existed.
Millions of people knew about the investigation.
You can subsequently explain.
You can correct.
You can apologise.
You can even win a court case.
But nobody can travel backwards in time and remove the original association from the minds of every person who saw it.
That is the reality we need to understand.
An allegation is information.
But publication is an event.
And events have consequences.
Professional journalism at least has standards to aspire to
This is why professional journalism has codes and standards.
They are not perfect.
Journalists are not perfect.
Broadcasters are not perfect.
The BBC is not perfect.
Newspapers are not perfect.
No organisation has a monopoly on truth.
But there is at least a professional recognition that certain distinctions matter.
The National Union of Journalists’ Code of Conduct says journalists should strive to ensure information is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair, should try to correct harmful inaccuracies, and should differentiate between fact and opinion. (National Union of Journalists)
The IPSO Editors’ Code similarly requires the press to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact, while its accuracy provisions require significant inaccuracies to be corrected promptly and with due prominence. (IPSO)
Those principles are crucial.
Fact.
Opinion.
Allegation.
Suspicion.
Conjecture.
Unverified information.
They are not the same thing.
And yet online, they are constantly presented as though they are interchangeable.
The further down the publishing chain we go, the safeguards can disappear
At one end, you might have a large news organisation.
Editors.
Journalists.
Legal departments.
Editorial guidelines.
Verification procedures.
Professional codes.
Perhaps specialist verification teams.
BBC Verify, for example, brings together expertise in verification, open-source intelligence and disinformation. But verification itself is not something that should belong exclusively to the BBC or any other major institution. (BBC Monitoring)
Move further down the chain and perhaps you have a regional newspaper.
Then an independent journalist.
Then a professional content creator.
Then a blogger.
Then a YouTube channel.
Then a TikTok account.
Then somebody with a Facebook page.
Then somebody who created an account this morning and has ten followers.
But here is the extraordinary thing:
Every one of them is now a publisher.
The size of the audience changes.
The responsibility does not disappear.
You might only have ten followers.
But one of those ten might believe what you say.
One might share it.
Someone might screenshot it.
Someone with 100,000 followers might repost it.
A journalist might find it.
An algorithm might suddenly amplify it.
And something that began as one person’s completely unverified opinion can suddenly be travelling around the world presented as fact.
Once it starts moving, you may have no control whatsoever over where it ends up.
You do not need a million followers to destroy a reputation
Suppose somebody posts:
“John Smith is a criminal.”
That is presented as a statement of fact.
But perhaps the person posting it actually knows nothing of the sort.
Perhaps somebody told them.
Perhaps they misunderstood something.
Perhaps John Smith was arrested but never charged.
Perhaps they saw him photographed with somebody else.
Perhaps he was Facebook friends with someone accused of a crime.
Perhaps they put two and two together and made six.
But someone reads the post.
Perhaps John’s employer.
Perhaps a customer.
Perhaps his wife.
Perhaps his children.
Perhaps somebody considering giving him a job.
Perhaps a journalist researching another story.
The creator might have had 12 followers.
It does not matter.
Their words may still have consequences.
Now compare that statement with:
“In my opinion, based on what I have seen, I have concerns about this.”
Or:
“This allegation has been made, but I have not independently verified it.”
Or:
“I witnessed the following personally…”
Or:
“I have seen this claim circulating online, but I do not know whether it is true.”
Or simply:
“This is my opinion.”
Those few words make an enormous difference.
They tell the audience what they are actually receiving.
A fact.
An opinion.
An allegation.
A personal observation.
Or something unverified.
That is not censorship.
It is responsibility.
The most dangerous content sometimes only asks a question
Modern irresponsible media has developed another extraordinarily effective technique.
It does not necessarily accuse you directly.
It asks questions.
“What is the connection between X and Y?”
“Why was he photographed with this person?”
“You won’t believe who she is Facebook friends with.”
“The connection nobody is talking about.”
“What did he know?”
Technically, perhaps, no direct accusation has been made.
But the audience has been invited to make the accusation for themselves.
The creator can later say:
“I was only asking questions.”
But reputations can be damaged by question marks just as effectively as by full stops.
The creator gets the views.
The platform gets the engagement.
The advertiser gets the impressions.
The audience gets the drama.
Who gets the consequences?
The person being discussed.
There is money in suspicion
We also need to acknowledge something uncomfortable.
There is an economic incentive behind sensationalism.
Compare these two hypothetical headlines:
“Police examine unverified allegation; no evidence currently links local businessman to wrongdoing.”
And:
“SHOCK LINK: Businessman connected to police investigation.”
Which one gets clicked?
The “link” might be nothing more than a Facebook friendship.
A photograph.
A former colleague.
Attendance at the same event.
A business connection from 15 years ago.
Technically, the connection exists.
But the presentation can make the audience believe that the connection means considerably more than it actually does.
Once the audience clicks, shares and comments, the economic objective has already been achieved.
Whether the implication was fair becomes somebody else’s problem.
Repetition is not corroboration
Then social media creates another illusion.
Someone makes an allegation.
A hundred people share it.
A thousand people repeat it.
Ten thousand people discuss it.
Suddenly the allegation appears credible because so many people are talking about it.
But think about what has actually happened.
There may still be only one original unverified claim.
Ten thousand people repeating one unverified claim does not create ten thousand pieces of evidence.
But emotionally, it feels as though it does.
We confuse repetition with corroboration.
We confuse virality with truth.
We confuse confidence with evidence.
We confuse popularity with accuracy.
That is extraordinarily dangerous.
The audience is part of the machine
It would be easy to blame journalists.
Or newspapers.
Or broadcasters.
Or YouTubers.
But we are all part of this.
Every time we share an allegation without checking it, we amplify it.
Every time we comment:
“I always thought there was something strange about him…”
we contribute to a narrative.
Every time we repost something because it is dramatic rather than because we know it is true, we participate.
Today, almost everybody with a smartphone has some capacity to publish.
That is a remarkable freedom.
But freedom without any recognition of consequence can hurt innocent people.
And when somebody gets it wrong, where is the accountability?
This, for me, is crucial.
A newspaper damages somebody’s reputation.
A broadcaster gives enormous exposure to a misleading narrative.
A YouTuber publishes an accusation.
A TikTok creator implies guilt.
Millions see it.
Then the facts change.
The allegation is disproved.
The suspect is released.
The prosecution fails.
The defendant is acquitted.
The connection turns out to mean nothing.
Where is the headline saying:
WE GOT THIS WRONG?
Where is the ten-minute television report explaining how the original coverage created the wrong impression?
Where is the YouTube creator saying to the same million subscribers:
“The implication I created was unfair. I was wrong.”
Where are the millions of views on the correction?
Where are the thousands of shares?
Too often, everybody simply moves on to tomorrow’s story.
But the person whose reputation was damaged cannot simply move on.
That is why accountability must apply not only to the people who appear in stories.
It must also apply to the people who create, frame and distribute those stories.
But we must not solve this by silencing people
And this is where I believe we have to be extremely careful.
The answer is not to stop ordinary people creating content.
The answer is not to say that only professional journalists should be allowed to report things.
Absolutely not.
Imagine a youngster filming an extraordinary skateboarder.
Someone filming fireworks being let off somewhere inappropriate.
A passer-by recording an accident.
A resident documenting something happening in their community.
A traveller witnessing something extraordinary.
A small independent creator discovering something that every major news organisation has missed.
We should not suppress that.
We should encourage it.
The democratisation of publishing is one of the most extraordinary things the internet has given humanity.
For most of history, if you wanted to communicate with a million people, you needed to own a newspaper, a television station or a radio network.
Today, potentially, you need a phone.
That is enormously powerful.
And I do not want SMACC to curtail that enthusiasm.
If we create an organisation that tells young creators:
“You are not qualified to speak.”
then, frankly, SMACC has no meaning.
I want the opposite.
I want more people creating.
More independent voices.
More witnesses.
More ideas.
More stories.
More people documenting the world around them.
But alongside that freedom, I want one thing.
Responsibility.
This is the purpose of SMACC
SMACC — Social Media and Content Creators — should not exist to pretend that independent creators are BBC journalists.
It should not be an elite club.
It should not tell people what opinions they are allowed to hold.
It should not decide what they can and cannot film.
It should not suppress enthusiasm.
And it should certainly not suggest that credibility is a privilege belonging exclusively to large media organisations.
Quite the opposite.
SMACC should exist to give independent creators something that they often do not have:
An organisation.
A professional community.
A set of principles.
A standard they can voluntarily say they aspire to.
And perhaps most importantly:
Credibility.
A creator who works alone may not have an editor.
They may not have a legal department.
They may not have professional journalists around them.
They may not have the resources of a national broadcaster.
But they can still say:
“I take what I do seriously.”
They can still say:
“I understand that what I publish can affect other human beings.”
They can still distinguish between fact and opinion.
They can still make clear when something is an allegation.
They can still admit when something has not been verified.
They can still correct something when they get it wrong.
They can still think before pressing Publish.
That is professionalism.
Professionalism is not the size of your building.
It is not the number of people you employ.
It is not having a press card.
It is not having BBC written in the corner of your screen.
Professionalism is an attitude towards responsibility.
The SMACC Code of Conduct should be a promise, not a guarantee
By signing up to a SMACC Code of Conduct, nobody should be claiming:
“Everything I publish will always be true.”
Nobody can promise that.
Professional journalists get things wrong.
Police officers get things wrong.
Judges get things wrong.
Juries get things wrong.
Witnesses get things wrong.
Content creators get things wrong.
I have personally seen innocent people found guilty.
I have seen guilty people found innocent.
And in different circumstances in my own life, I have contributed to processes where innocent people were found guilty and where guilty people were found innocent.
There is no magic answer.
Human beings make judgments based on the information available to them.
Sometimes we get those judgments right.
Sometimes we get them catastrophically wrong.
The standard cannot therefore be perfection.
The standard must be responsibility.
A person signing up to the SMACC Code of Conduct is not promising infallibility.
They are saying:
I take what I publish seriously.
I understand that my words and images can have consequences.
I will make a reasonable effort to distinguish fact from opinion.
I will try not to present an unverified claim as established truth.
I will make clear when something is my personal opinion.
I will try to verify important claims where it is reasonably possible to do so.
I will consider the potential effect of what I publish on other people.
And when I discover that I have got something seriously wrong, I will try to put it right.
That is not an unreasonable standard.
It is a basic human one.
Anybody can verify. Anybody can be responsible.
BBC Verify has a reputation for verification.
Fine.
That is something to aspire to.
But the BBC does not own responsibility.
It does not own accuracy.
It does not own integrity.
A national newspaper does not own professionalism.
A qualified journalist does not own truth.
Anybody can try to verify something.
Anybody can check another source.
Anybody can pause before sharing an allegation.
Anybody can write:
“This is my opinion.”
Anybody can say:
“I cannot verify this.”
Anybody can correct a mistake.
A teenager with 20 followers can behave responsibly.
A YouTuber with ten million subscribers can behave irresponsibly.
A national newspaper can get something terribly wrong.
A one-person independent creator can uncover something enormously important.
The organisation does not determine the integrity.
The behaviour does.
That is the opportunity for SMACC.
To give the responsible independent creator a way of saying:
“I may not work for a major media organisation, but I take my responsibilities just as seriously.”
Sometimes being responsible is incredibly simple
You do not need a journalism degree.
You do not need a newsroom.
You do not need a lawyer sitting beside you every time you post something.
Sometimes the difference between responsible and irresponsible publishing is a few words.
“This is a fact.”
“This is my opinion.”
“This is what I personally witnessed.”
“This is an allegation.”
“I have been told this, but I cannot verify it.”
“I believe this to be true based on the following evidence.”
“I may be wrong.”
Those distinctions matter.
They allow the audience to make its own judgment.
They prevent opinion masquerading as fact.
They reduce the chance that speculation becomes certainty simply through repetition.
And they acknowledge something fundamental:
The person on the other end of your content is a human being.
Try to be a good human being
Perhaps, ultimately, we make all of this sound more complicated than it needs to be.
Try to be fair.
Try to be accurate.
Try to check.
Do not deliberately mislead people.
Do not pretend you know something when you don’t.
Do not destroy somebody’s reputation because an unverified rumour makes good content.
Make it clear when something is your opinion.
Think about the difference between suspicion and evidence.
Remember that knowing somebody does not make them responsible for that person’s actions.
Remember that a photograph does not explain a relationship.
Remember that a Facebook friend may barely be a friend at all.
Remember that an allegation is not a conviction.
Remember that repetition does not make something true.
Be prepared to admit when you are wrong.
Think about the consequences before pressing Publish.
In other words:
Try to be a good human being.
That should not be an ambition reserved for professional journalists.
It should be an ambition for every one of us.
Because we are all publishers now
This brings me back to where I started.
Your Facebook friends.
Your photographs.
Your comments.
Your likes.
Your contacts.
Your digital history.
You know the context.
You know why you met somebody.
You know why the photograph was taken.
You know whether somebody is your lifelong friend or somebody you met once at a conference.
But the person examining your digital footprint may not.
The police officer may see a potential association that requires examination.
The journalist may see a possible story.
The content creator may see a potential video.
The algorithm may see engagement.
The audience may see guilt.
And somewhere along that chain, the context can disappear completely.
That is why we need responsible police investigations.
Responsible journalism.
Responsible broadcasters.
Responsible newspapers.
Responsible content creators.
And responsible audiences.
Not because anybody should be frightened into silence.
But because information has consequences.
This is what SMACC should stand for
Not controlling creators.
Supporting them.
Not restricting freedom of expression.
Encouraging responsibility alongside it.
Not deciding who is allowed to have a voice.
Helping people understand the responsibility that comes with having one.
Not claiming that independent creators are professional journalists.
Giving independent creators the opportunity to demonstrate professional standards.
Not creating another authority that tells people what to think.
Creating a community whose members say they care about how they communicate.
SMACC should give credibility to creators who do not have a major organisation standing behind them.
It should allow someone to say:
“I am an independent content creator, but I take responsibility for what I publish.”
Because today, whether your audience is ten people or ten million, what you say can affect somebody’s career.
Their business.
Their relationships.
Their children.
Their reputation.
Their future.
Sometimes even their freedom.
That is an enormous responsibility.
But it is also an enormous opportunity.
We have created a world in which almost anybody can have a voice.
Now perhaps we need to create a culture in which having a voice also means understanding the consequences of using it.
Because credibility should not be something bestowed upon you simply because you work for the BBC.
Responsibility should not be something reserved for people carrying a press card.
Professionalism should not be something available only to those employed by large media organisations.
Anyone can choose to be responsible.
Anyone can aspire to accuracy.
Anyone can distinguish opinion from fact.
Anyone can acknowledge uncertainty.
Anyone can correct a mistake.
Anyone can think about the human being on the other side of the story.
That is what SMACC is about.
And in a world drowning in information, allegations, opinions, associations, outrage and misinformation, perhaps that has never mattered more.
SMACC — Social Media and Content Creators
Create freely. Speak honestly. Check where you can. Make opinion clear. Understand the consequences. Take responsibility.
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