With Twitter usage still growing, it’s no surprise that law enforcement has caught on. But what would a cop tweet? For some reason, I get mental image of an officer getting back in his car after a stop and Tweeting, “Got one doin 43 in a 40 LOL…quota filled! Celebrating with doughnuts.”
Hopefully not the case, but really, is it that far off? It seems LEA’s (Law Enforcement Agencies) in Great Britain have put Tweeting to use showing the citizens how much they really do in a day. Greater Manchester PD took a 24-hour period last October to Tweet every incident that they dealt with.
Here in the US, LEA’s use Twitter to send information on stolen cars (Seattle), and to share 911 calls with their followers (Denton, TX).
Could this use of technology be used to cast a bad light on those who are arrested and make them “guilty until proven innocent”? Certainly, but the regular news media generally does a good job of that. However, in this case, I believe it makes the activities and dealings of law enforcement more public and more transparent, something other areas of government should take note of.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
A clearinghouse for issues surrounding the world of mass media, from the blockbuster changes to the incremental moves...in other words, a place for our stuff.
CLASS MATERIALS
NEWSLINKS
MASS MEDIA INDUSTRY NEWS
PREVIOUSLY...
- May 2011 (1)
- April 2011 (15)
- March 2011 (12)
- February 2011 (16)
- January 2011 (8)
- May 2010 (1)
- April 2010 (20)
- March 2010 (19)
- February 2010 (19)
- January 2010 (5)
- November 2009 (21)
- October 2009 (18)
- September 2009 (20)
- August 2009 (3)
DISCLAIMER
The posts and comments on this weblog do not necessarily reflect the views, goals and mission of Belmont University, only those of the named authors.
7 comments:
I'm not sure I'd even be interested in following a cop's tweets of situations. Most likely the information wouldn't really be applicable to the majority of Tweet readers. Also, the information could easily go unverified before it becomes distributed to the masses. There also remains the possibility for people pretending to be police officers or government officials notifying people of emergencies or major arrests. I don't see how much good this could do for the public because major incidents end up on the news anyway, and news services already Tweet. I think most of the information is only significant to the cops and the government employees involved anyway, and I doubt much of the information could really be much more than people already can access.
I agree that I would not be interested in following a cop's tweets and it does seem dangerous that information on arrests before the person is processed would break some kind of law. I think that if the purpose is to show how much a given police officer does in a day, it is counterproductive to stop and tweet after every incident. While information on stolen cars and other emergency information might be beneficial, I doubt that a large number of people would follow that
Yeah, following the police's tweets seems boring to me. I mean, it's great that you have the opportunity to follow them if you want, but the same information could be gotten from a news source if they tweeted it. I guess it would prove how much crime is in an area, though.
If someone was really concerned about what was going on in their area, I think this would be fine but for everyone else it's a little boring. I think I would follow for a day and then drop it. Tweeting every incident can be a pain for the cops if there happens to be a lot of them. Tweeting incidents could be a good way to reach out to citizens but the news already covers many incidents.
Regardless of how much I would enjoy following the police on twitter, I think it would be more likely to cause problems than not. I believe police officers should be looking to protect and serve rather than to be involved in social media. The police already spend enough time monitoring social media sites like Facebook, they don't need to be spending more time updating things.
Regardless of how much I would enjoy following the police on twitter, I think it would be more likely to cause problems than not. I believe police officers should be looking to protect and serve rather than to be involved in social media. The police already spend enough time monitoring social media sites like Facebook, they don't need to be spending more time updating things.
This worries me. Though the police should have the right to free speech, it's kind of like a company releasing their trade secrets. I think people should have enough sense to not reveal things that they should not reveal via twitter.
Post a Comment