The fastest way for teenagers to spread the word about a party now is to use social-networking sites such as Facebook. Post your party as an event or a group, and it's instantly available to thousands of people who have an account.
Instantly available to anyone - even police officers.
With the popularity of Facebook and MySpace reaching towering heights, teenagers looking to advertise a little fun on the weekend face a double-edged sword: They want to get the word out about what's often illegal activity such as underage drinking or trespassing, but whatever they post in public forums is available to parents, teachers and other authority figures.
This cat-and-mouse game came to a head when Ontario Provincial Police near Tillsonburg, two hours southwest of Toronto, were tipped by a community member two weeks ago about a huge bush party planned for tomorrow night on an estimated 10-acre private plot of land behind a manufacturing plant.
The person, OPP Constable Mark Foster said, came across a Facebook group entitled "Wabash Party," which has a picture of two people lying facedown amid heaps of empty beer cans and drinking cups and has a list of 716 people planning to attend the party.
"This party is gonna be a real mess," one person posted.
On Wednesday night, OPP issued a statement warning partygoers that officers would be in the area and watching for illegal drug use, underage drinking and trespassing. Const. Foster also said police have notified the property owners and encouraged parents of teenagers planning to attend the party to speak to their children about the dangers of bush parties.
Police using Facebook for investigations is becoming more and more common.
Const. Foster said OPP officers who work at the e-crimes branch in Orillia use Facebook and other online sites such as MySpace and YouTube in their police investigations.
At his branch, officers don't have access to Facebook; an officer used a private account from his or her home to investigate the party posted on the site, he said.
"We're not monitoring anything that's going on on those websites; it's just that when we hear about information, we have to clarify that information," he said, adding the OPP checked the details by accessing the sites and talking to local high-school students.
Constable Scott Mills of Toronto police uses Facebook to educate the public about the force's Crime Stoppers program, of which he's a part. Peel Regional Police also have a similar Facebook profile.
Using the profile name "Toronto Crime Stoppers," Const. Mills joins several Facebook groups to educate the public about how to use the anonymous tip service to report a crime.
When 15-year-old Jordan Manners was shot and killed at Toronto's C.W. Jefferys high school last month, Const. Mills posted on several group pages that had sprouted up in Jordan's memory, asking people to phone Crime Stoppers if they had any information about the murder.
"Once you figure out how it works, it can be quite an effective tool for reaching a lot of people really fast," Const. Mills said.
Const. Mills said he uses Facebook as a public-education tool, but he knows other officers who do otherwise.
"You can use it for a public education piece and reach out to people in a positive way or you can sign up kind of covertly and join school groups," he said.
With people flocking online to spread the news about wild bashes - a simple search for "parties this weekend" brings up 303 events - what will partiers do now that police are on to them?
Kevin Tuns, an 18-year-old high-school student who was planning to attend the bash on Saturday, is now not so sure.
"Personally, now I am afraid to show up to the party," he wrote in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail, adding that he feels police are reacting to a situation in which nothing illegal has happened yet.
But where there's a will, there's a way.
Mr. Tuns said if the party was to proceed, it would have to be moved deeper into the woods on the property, and the bonfires kept out of sight.
And for the next party planner, Mr. Tuns suggested keeping it away from Facebook.
"This is not the first time that this has happened to parties which I have attended," he wrote.
"... a few weeks back, a party actually got busted. I asked the cops how they found out about the party, it was Facebook of course.
The police officer actually had printed directions from the Facebook group to the party."
Brandon Knack, the 20-year-old who created the Facebook group for the party, has decided not to be anywhere close to the party site on Saturday night.
"I didn't think it would be a big deal putting a party on [Facebook], but I guess it is around this area," he said.
He told The Globe he was surprised at how quickly the group increased in size from the time he created it two months ago.
If he had a chance to spread the news of the party again, he said he wouldn't use Facebook, but word-of-mouth instead.
"But even then the police find out certain ways," he said, adding that in a small town like Tillsonburg, he has friends whose parents are or know OPP officers.
"It's not much for word to get around."
