Is Facebook helping build a police state?

It’s an extremely harsh question to ask, one that would have made no sense less than a year ago, but the pace in which things are changing is sure to make one wonder if it’s not really happening.

Independent journalist Kenneth Lipp attended the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference this week in Philly. Among the disturbing things he learned there is that Facebook is apparently teaming up with the Chicago Police Department to block people from posting to the social media website. More disturbing still is that this was disclosed in the context of a panel on law enforcement’s response to “mass gatherings spurred by social media.”