Missing in action I recently posted about the increasing number of ways that social media is being used for social good – including saving the lives of human rights workers. Now social media – and Twitter in particular – is becoming the mainstream way of locating missing people. I was slightly surprised when I reviewed...
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If you’re interested in British Police use of social media, you should definitely follow Mike Downes (@mikedownesmedia) who produces an incredibly useful monthly statistical update on UK police social media accounts. In his latest post, Mike has focused on the sharp increase in the number of people “Liking” police Facebook posts – where 16 forces...
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Criminals and law enforcement officials both make use of new technologies and social media in particular to outwit each other. This week’s post focuses on how gangs use social media and how police respond. Gangs use social media to brag Gang members use the whole range of social media platforms to spread inflammatory messages...
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Hold the front page Crime has always been front page news. Always sold newspapers. The advent of TV – remember the real time coverage of OJ Simpson’s arrest – accelerated the speed with which news spread: And social media has ensured that bad news goes global in minutes – as anyone following the Oscar...
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Setting the right tone Historically, police- public communication has tended to be formal and impersonal. Official statements about the status of a high profile operation. Press releases about a new initiative to tackle burglary or car crime. The COMPOSITE report found that police communications over social media had a completely different tone to them....
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The wisdom of the crowd The last two posts in this series have examined the widespread take-up of social media by police forces across Europe in order to communicate more effectively with the public. This post focuses on the benefits of this approach. Once police have established a strong social media presence (which is...
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Using social media to push information direct to the public The COMPOSITE report found that many European police forces had taken the opportunities provided by social media to disseminate information directly to their target audiences. Many had eagerly embraced the chance to get their exact message across without the press as an intermediary. Most...
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The COMPOSITE report found that police use of social media varied markedly across Europe. Every country used social media as a source of criminal information but far fewer have, as yet, adopted the UK approach of developing a strong online presence. The report’s authors put forward a strong five-point case as to why police...
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The COMPOSITE report on the adoption of social media by police in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain and the UK found that all these European police forces routinely examined suspects’ social media sites as a key source of information. One of the key findings is that information...
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The iPlod generation is growing all the time There was a bit of a backlash against the police use of social media, particularly Twitter, towards the end of 2012 with many of us feeling that @J_amesP was unfairly picked on. We wish him well in 2013, but it’s clear that although police services and...
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