What do you think of police departments using Twitter and Facebook? What are the positives, negatives, and potentials? Is this something good for neighborhoods and society? Do you actually follow law enforcement or even local city government on social media outlets? Have you ever found any real benefit to following PD on such social media platforms.
Okay, enough questions. Watch the video below to get a glimpse into twittering police from a department in the Greater Manchester area of England. Follow GM Police at @gmpolice. For reference, as of now, their twitter account has 16,318 followers.
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The thing I thought was so interesting about the video was when they said that crime was a big part of what they do, wider social problems is a bigger part of their workload. It is interesting to get a glimpse into their daily lives and see how they spend their time and help the community.
The other thing I think that is interesting is that if their tweets are real time and have their geo location attached, you could use any number of twitter apps to get a idea of how safe an area was. You could view your location on a map along with the police tweets. You could see what was happening around you and your community.
What do you think Ryan? Would like to see the tweets of your local police department?
First off, thanks Bryan for the initial link via email to this video. I really appreciate you seeing good stuff and passing it here.
Part of me wonders why it’s necessary to share every tidbit of crime that is happening. What is the real value here? I suppose on one hand it can help us see that PD is always working and busy with something. Yet on the other hand, if too much information is tweeted, it could jeopardize someone’s privacy or help stigmatize an area (well, the area is probably already known as a “crime area”). Usually the police are careful about that in that they would say “domestic dispute on First Street” instead of “123 First Street – Domestic Disturbance.”
Overall, I see some red flags, but I think using Twitter has a tremendous appeal and advantage. I think it’s one more way for PD to reach out and let people know what’s going on. However, if it’s just a one-way relationship of spewing one-way informational tweets, then it’s less valuable. I do notice that @GMpolice follows some people back, whereas a local department near me, @SacPolice, does not follow anyone. That seems imbalanced to me. Maybe I’m just some sort of Twitter elitist, but I think that if there is no opportunity for relationship, than the mechanism has less power.
Great thoughts Ryan and very interesting observation about how they follow back on Twitter. There are definitely some pros and cons.
I took a look at @SacPolice’s tweets. Several recent tweets were about car accidents. It probably won’t be long until those tweets are feed into your car’s GPS system to alert you of traffic problems. Letting you know if you need to take another route.
Wow, Bryan. That would be wild and a huge advantage to get real time traffic updates.
It’s funny that you brought this up because I was inclined to join Twitter in order to follow my local PD. I ended up joining for work, but just started following my local PD a few days ago. They don’t tweet that frequently, and tend to tweet what I was expecting/hoping for: local traffic issues, links to press releases, amber alerts, local community awareness, etc. I like this and think it’s a good idea because it brings the community together and awareness where there needs to be awareness.
However, I do not like the idea of officers tweeting about their day-to-day on-the-job happenings. First of all, I’d rather they just be focused on doing their job than distracted with Twitter. Second, there is such a thing as too much information. And while it is a cool idea to think that you could get a feel for an area based on police tweets, we get enough on the news to be paranoid for a lifetime. Why add to it? Plus, it might cause unnecessary panic if someone jumped to conclusions or misunderstood a tweet.
Great post!
Thanks Heidi. It’s interesting that it was a selling point to join Twitter to follow them. That’s all good stuff they’re tweeting about.
I echo your concerns about tweeting while on the job. It may be best to have someone at the central switchboard tweeting up a storm instead of officers going to town. Can you imagine? “Made an arrest. Dang, I was just about ready to hit up @Starbucks #frustrated #badguys”