Hacks mimic identity of your friend to access your information

Friends connecting on Facebook, more than ever, is something that needs to be respected and trusted.

Recently a number of people including me have received friend requests on Facebook from people they know. Why is this unusual? Because these requests are from people who are ‘already’ connected and listed as friends.

The requests are from scammers attempting to gain access to your Facebook account and utilise your information that you share only with friends. They are using the scam of Ghost Accounts. Meaning they are Fake Imposter Accounts, that have copied everything from a friends Facebook Account, that is available on public view.

Once they are accepted into your account, they are in a position to glean as much information as needed to further their scam. They send friend requests to your friends and can make an imposter account from your details.

What to do
If you receive a request, firstly check with your friend to see if they have created another account.

If they have not – Report the Imposter account and warn all the people in your friend list to also report the account.

Some helpful linked from Facebook:

• Report an account pretending to be you
• Report a fake account that’s pretending to be one of your friends
• Request a copy of what was posted about you
• Protect privacy of your image

How to fix it
Change your Profile picture and Cover photo, as the fake account is likely to have copied these and is using them. Friends can then distinguish between the imposter and the correct Facebook account.

Check what is on Public View – this is done by choosing the ‘View As’ tab on your Profile Page.

View As Tab – Will display a public view of your Timeline.

Lock down your Friend list. To do this ~ Click the friends tab on your Profile and from the dropdown box choose the option of ‘Edit Privacy’ and then ‘Only Me’.

Click on the Friends Tab on your profile – Edit Privacy – Only Me

Friend Hacks
The more difficult issue comes from a friend who appears to have just joined Facebook and sends you a request. Be on alert, verify the account by sending the friend a text message or email. Do Not Send an inbox message to this new account request, as this does not verify the account! If you are not comfortable contacting the person to verify the account, should they really be on your friend list?!

(If you feel you have to friend them, once verified, place them in the ‘Restricted’ or ‘Acquaintance’ listing so they view only a limited profile.)

Some would say the above is too cumbersome and time consuming, but how much is your information worth? Isn’t going the extra yards to protect your account, personal posts and photos worth it?! …. I think so!

Real life scenario
A new person started at the office and you later receive a friend request from them. A check of their Timeline shows their account was only opened last monday. For the moment you ignore the account request. The next day you check the account and they have managed to friend 16 of your mutual friends.

Nobody has bothered to check via text, email or other contact, to verify this person or the account. It is later discovered it is an imposter account.

This ‘friend hack’ now has access to a number of colleagues information from that work environment, along with access to their family photos, friends, other information and personal posts.

This is a real scenario, discovered this week! These work colleagues had no idea and are concerned as their information may have been downloaded, copied, printed out or shared by the fake account!

More than ever being a friend on social media, needs to hold an element of respect, trust and appreciation that you have been chosen to be an online friend.

The friends you have on Facebook need to have your back… if you can’t verify them or trust them.. ‘unfriend’ and get rid of them! This is for online safety and management of your digital reputation, not only for you, but for your family and friends.

Janita Docherty founder and Director of CyberActive Services is a trained Crime Prevention Executive with more than 18 years experience in the field of law and criminal investigation. Janita specialises in Facebook and Internet Safety instruction and is recognised for her work with law enforcement Units dedicated in the fields of E-Crime, Sex Crime, State Intelligence and Tactical Intelligence areas. Janita has an intricate knowledge on the workings of Facebook from a criminal intelligence perspective and is a leader in her field regarding Facebook training to Police and specialist law enforcement departments both in Australia and the United States. Janita has completed training with the Internet Crime Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce, and holds a number of Certifications, including a Diploma in Frontline Management, a full qualification in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), is a Youth Mental Health First Aider and has been presented with a National Service Medal. She is held in high regard within social media and law enforcement domains, for her enthusiasm to educate professionals, regarding online safety and digital reputation management.

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 five UK police Facebook pages recently and found that a third of the most popular posts related to missing persons.

@BrightPlanet were kind enough to share the data they harvested from the recent Global Police Tweetathon and I found that 330 of the 9,836 tweets from UK forces sent on 22 March this year were also about missing persons.

It’s no surprise that police use social media for this purpose though.

I’ve come across two successful outcomes in the last month.

West Midlands Police find “escaped” patient

A 75 year old man with dementia wandered away from a hospital in Birmingham last Saturday.

@WMPolice were contacted by the hospital at 2 p.m. and immediately posted requests for information on Twitter and Facebook at the same time as they started a major police search.

Less than an hour later, a member of the public who saw the social media messages noticed a man matching the description leaning against a wall two miles from the hospital and phoned the police who picked up the missing patient and returned him safe and sound.

Full details here.

Twitter helps Belfast woman find missing mum

A Belfast woman with Alzheimer’s Disease went out to walk her dogs at 9 o’clock in the morning on 3rd April this year.

By teatime, she had still not returned home and her family were sick with worry.

Her daughter, who was travelling back from Donegal, felt helpless because she could not get a good phone signal, so decided to post an appeal on Twitter and Facebook.

She urged her followers to retweet and share the picture message.

The message was re-tweeted hundreds of time and was crucially seen by a local resident:

“I was sitting in the living room, watching TV, and I noticed a woman walking past the window with two dogs,” she said.

“She seemed a wee bit dazed and kind of caught my attention but I didn’t think anything of it.

Literally, 30 seconds later I was on Twitter and I saw a re-tweet with a photo of the woman I’d just seen.

I jumped in the car, drove round and caught up with her.”

She gently coaxed the woman into coming into the house for a cup of tea while her husband rang the worried daughter and the police.

Coincidentally both the daughter and the woman who found her mother were both used to being given a hard time by their husbands for being Twitter addicts.

I reckon they can tweet as often as they like from now on.

Full details on the BBC Northern Ireland website here.

West Midlands Police made Press Conference history in the United Kingdom today LIVE at YouTube. For the UK, it’s the first time a police force has streamed a live press conference seeking a suspect or witness in an ongoing investigation.

In a Google world where fast is better than slow (on the web or in catching a murder), anyone can become their own media company.

According to YouTube and Magid and Associates, 25-45% of all videos viewed at YouTube are on mobile. So, creating a press conference that streams straight to someone’s pocket is sensible.

However, 67% of those mobiles views are at home (in the lounge or the bedroom) as a second screen. That means, a person is sitting in the same room as a switched on TV, but uses the mobile too.

What is happening at YouTube on their lap will not reach TV until a few hours or even half a day later.

This screen capture shows how Google favours a LIVE Video and rewards that in Search. We also have a few new features with Google+ Hangouts like a LIVE Rewind button that gives the audience complete control.

So, if you arrive at the LIVE feeds a few minutes late, one click restarts the broadcast (similar to sky or cable TV). Another click and you are LIVE again. As you drag the slider, mini thumbnails appear giving you a visual clue on what you have missed (TV does not do this).

We can also see YouTube generates a snapshot of the broadcast and places that at the YouTube LIVE page giving you an instant glimpse in the program.

Finally, this is free. Anyone can do this. Feel free to ask me how to get started.

In Canada, Constable Scott Mills of the Toronto Police Service uses backpack journalism to stream similar press conferences and reports from the street. We also have Kerry Blakeman from +West Midlands Police already using LIVE at YouTube with more planned broadcasts this month.

Constable Mills has lead the effort at Toronto Police to broadcast live from the scene of a homicide, and when Dean Wichar was arrested for the John Raposa murder, he broadcast from the lobby of Toronto’s 51 Division in the evening with an Internet signal tethered from a print media reporter’s iPhone.

Let me leave you with the Press Conference as it happened and the accompanying CCTV video of a man and a vehicle.

Editor’s Note: The officer in the following videos is Superintendent Mark Payne of the West Midlands Police. He has keynoted at The SMILE Conference and has written several articles on this blog.

Mike Downes – Teacher, Broadcaster, Google+ Hangout Specialist
After spending fifteen years as a school teacher, Mike moved to local media by starting whatsinKenilworth.com in April 2010. After getting noticed by mainstream media (by blogging about Library closures and local Policing), Google+ opened in June 2011 allowing a whole new experience. Mike quickly saw Hangouts as a realtime video tool that connected people. Anoek Eckhardt, Communications and Public Affairs Manager at Google said: “Mike is a great ambassador for Google+. His interaction with thousands of people from across the world to share knowledge, advice and learn together highlights the collaborative power of Google+.

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 had month-on-month growth of over 20%.

I thought I’d do a little analysis and look at exactly what sort of police posts people like.

What do the public like on police Facebook pages

Mike found that three police forces had the highest rate of increase in Facebook “likes” compared to the previous month: Hampshire, Greater Manchester and Strathclyde. I looked at the Facebook pages for these three forces and identified the five most popular posts from each in the month under review. Where more than one post covered the same subject, I aggregated the number of likes and treated them as one post.

Hampshire

In Hampshire (@hantspolice), the post that provoked the most public response was a photo of a police car parked in a disabled bay at MacDonalds which the Constabulary had to explain occurred when an officer went to investigate an offence, not to get a Big Mac and fries.

Tragically, the second most popular post related to an officer who had died on duty in a Road Traffic Accident.

Two of the three other most popular posts related to missing people who had been found and one was a plea for information relating to an assault on a pensioner.

Greater Manchester

In Greater Manchester (@gmpolice), by far the most popular post had photos of a new police dog’s first day at work.

Interestingly, the second most popular post was also about dogs – in this case, a story about local dog thefts.

As in Hampshire, two of the top five posts related to missing persons with the other a plea for information on the anniversary of an unsolved murder case.

Strathclyde Police

Once we look at the Strathclyde data (now @policescotland), some themes start emerging:

Yet again,we have one post relating to dogs and one to a missing person. The second most popular post related to the amalgamation of all seven Scottish police forces into Police Scotland and the other two were concerned with police successes: the conviction and sentence of murderers and the arrest of sex offenders.

Summary

So, what have we learnt from this not-so-scientific mini analysis?

The public seem to respond to some key categories of Facebook post:

• Information pleas and good news about (particularly vulnerable) missing persons – 5 out of these 15 posts.
• Posts relating to animals (in this case all dogs) – 3 out of 15.
• Controversy (amalgamation of Scottish forces, parking in disabled bay) – 2 out of 15.
• Successes – criminals arrested or sentenced, particularly in high profile cases – 2 out of 15.

It is no surprise that UK police forces are such advocates of social media.

Facebook allows them to engage with the public with ease, show a very wide range of their work and quickly spread request for information.

It’s also a great medium for celebrating success.

What does your force usually post on Facebook?

You might also like BrightPlanet’s infographic analysing the 1St Global Police Tweetathon which shows the favourite topics for police services to tweet about.

Please contribute via the comments section below.

Police departments of old always operated by one simple motto…”nothing to see here, move along.” In the age of social it’s hard to change that mentality, especially if you we’re raised with the above motto. Police held their information close to the vest and hardly communicated at all with the public. When you used to see several police cars on a street in the middle of the night citizens were left wondering, “what’s going on.”

I remember a day not so long ago when you said nothing, “don’t talk to the press,” “I can’t comment, please speak with the PIO,” “an official statement is forthcoming.”

Now news doesn’t break, it tweets. Information moves so fast, that if you wait for an official press release, the information is old news.

So when you think about social media strategies, it boils down to one simple trick, Be Social. Here is my simple strategy for police departments and the use of social media.

1. Listen

After you accept that social media has a role to play in your departments communication, the majority don’t yet know how best to use them. This is why it is important to listen first. I remember when I started Twitter for my department, all I did was scour social media sites listening to what people were saying. What they were saying about my city, my department, and what they were doing in the community.

Social media is an amazing source of insight, offering unfiltered evidence of people’s behaviors and attitudes. Listening to what they are saying online allows you to get a glimpse of what is going on in your community. Listening also helps us decide what kind of information will be received by your followers and what content we can use to engage the public. For example, by monitoring the community we were able to create a better traffic awareness plan for traffic safety and enforcement.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Once you are engaged with your community the listening doesn’t stop, but becomes an ongoing process. People’s conversations continues during and after we act, we have to keep asking questions to understand the people’s needs and wants.

Active listening is required- giving feedback is important to make clear that we are really listening. It sends a powerful message: ‘you are important, and we are listening.’

2. Participate

Talk to people. The driving force behind social media is ordinary people sharing their experiences online with a broad community. This includes how they have been touched by your “brand,” both in a positive and negative light. It is important for law enforcement to tell their own story, rather than letting our customers, or detractors, including the media, tell it for us.

Social media requires conversation, unlike the old press release days were we guarded our information and put out only what we thought was relevant content. Departments must foster mutually beneficial dialogue and information exchange. Unlike standard operating procedure, we use our community to help do our jobs. People call the police and we respond. People tell us there is a problem and we respond. An informant tells us there is illegal activity and we respond. Doesn’t sound much different, does it. We must foster our relationships with the social media community to respond to their needs. We must create that dialogue with our online community which involves sharing, attention, interest, understanding, and activity.

Once we have fostered that relationship, obtained followers and likes, etc. we must then give them something to talk about. Your followers are interested and want to know what’s going on. People want to see the good things your department is doing in the community. What I found from my listening efforts is that people want to see all the good things your department is doing. Some of our best responses from our community have been showing the better side of police work, the officer retiring after 30 years. The
youth cadet program that wins an award, the citizen going on her first ride along at 86 years old.

Television media is filled with horror and bad things people go through, even department
or officer controversy, what your people want, and will talk about, is how their
department is doing great things in the community.

Being a police department is not a brand that people are naturally going to talk about or
engage with, but by tapping into these ‘relevance by association’ topics as I’ve touched
on above, will get people talking about what they are passionate about, seeing their
community grow from your departments involvement in it. The key is to generate
content or a story that both it, and the community can participate in together.

3. Monitor and Optimize (Return on Investment)

Measuring behavior within social media for law enforcement is different from traditional businesses because there are so many more actions that are measurable and do not rely on sales. Measurements such as posts, comments, links, votes, views, likes, retweets, are just a few which are comparable to traditional media sources.

Constant, on going measurement is vital. This can be used to measure the success of content but also to continuously develop conversations and drive your ‘brand.”

Some possible metrics for measuring social media for public safety are as follows:

Behavioral metrics are used to gauge the level of attention or engagement your activity Is generating, for example the volume of conversations or mentions. Share of conversation, meaning what proportion of conversations are about your department.

Awareness, perception, and sentiment metrics are used to see how much time people are spending on your sites, and what impact traditional media is having on social behavior online.

Attitudinal or sentiment metrics can be used to gauge your activity’s emotional responses or impact on attitudes to your brand.

Ecosystem metrics can be used to get a sense of the wider impact of your activity, for example what is the origin of the conversation? Which local followers, sources, and sites are influential? The number and activity of fans and followers can also be measured.

Final Thoughts

The use of social media should not be used like conventional media. Social networks, networks of people, are not mass media channels.

Social media is not a cure. It is a tool for public safety to use along with other means of communication and engagement.

Social media grew from the ground up, by the people, and for the people. It cannot be run from the top down.

Finally, social media is not a campaign, it’s an ongoing commitment to talk with the people in your community, as I said at the beginning it’s all about being social, talking, something we do every day. But remember, once you are out there, you have to stay out there.

Officer Chris Rasmussen has been in Law Enforcement for 22 years having served with the San Francisco Police and the Redwood City Police Department. Officer Rasmussen was one of the founding members of the Redwood City Police Social Media Team. He has also worked with the City of Redwood City on developing the Citywide social media policy. Officer Rasmussen was one of the founding members and coordinator of the Bay Area Law Enforcement Social Media Group (#BALESMG). Chris has 20 years of experience as a Law Enforcement Trainer in a variety of fields including Use of Force, defensive tactics, tactical baton, TASER, community policing, and social media. Chris is also a member of the police honor guard, patrol rifle team, and is part of the Technology Committee for the department.

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 and encourage rival gangs to respond.

At a recent ABC News sponsored gang summit in Chicago attended by current and former gang members, several participants said that social media played a significant role in fuelling gang rivalry:

“If I make a video about somebody else, everybody is going to watch,” he said. “I get on Facebook, put up a status, somebody is somebody’s friend. If I get on Twitter, I make a tweet, somebody is going to whisper to that person, ‘did you seen what happened?’ I get on Instagram, take a picture of another person in the hood…”

Young gang members can’t afford to make expensive music videos but they can use their phone camera to record a video and post it on YouTube. There are scores of examples of British gang members on YouTube, typically brandishing guns, smoking drugs and rapping about what they’re going to do to their rivals.

A recent report by the US-based National Gang Crime Research Centre details the way in which street gangs carry out “electronic gang warfare” using Facebook.

Gangs exploit Facebook’s laissez-faire approach to hosting gangs sites on their platform. Most gangs register their account as a “community organisation” and make no attempt to play down or disguise their activities.

Gangs also use social media to recruit and intimidate

Gangs’ use of social media to brag and taunt other gangs is well known and has been established for years. However, more recently some gangs have also been using social media, particularly Facebook, to find out where young people who are skipping school are hanging out.

The gangs then show up at these locations and try to recruit the young people into their gang.

Police use social media to identify gang members

Although many police officers are disenchanted, to say the least, at the ease with which gang members are allowed to post violent content online, most admit that there is a positive spin-off and that they routinely trawl social media sites for a range of gang-related intelligence.

The New York Police Department has started routinely searching for suspects’ photos on Facebook before running them through their new Facial Recognition Unit.

Here’s a typical example of the technology in use:

A young woman reported that her jewellery was stolen from her in the street by an acquaintance’s boyfriend. She did not know the robber’s name, but she did know that he was bound to be in photos on his girlfriend’s Facebook page.

The police went online and then scanned the photo through the Facial Recognition software and established his identity – making a simple arrest shortly afterwards.

See here for further details.

Ganging up on social media

As usual, technology provides the same opportunities for both criminals and law enforcement personnel.

Both sides are getting increasingly sophisticated in the way they use social media to try to outwit each other.

If you know of any new developments in this area, please share it with readers via the comments section below.

Police departments around the world use Twitter as a means of sharing information with their communities. BrightPlanet recently completed a study to uncover exactly how police departments are using Twitter.

Using BrightPlanet’s harvesting technology, we identified a total of 772 Twitter handles run by state and local law enforcement departments. Throughout the study, BrightPlanet harvested over 115,000 different tweets from the 772 department Twitter handles. We analyzed both the raw text of all the harvested tweets and the data from the profiles of each department handle we identified.

For the purpose of our study, we focused on identifying Twitter handles from police departments that had their description information in English. We’ve created an infographic to help you see the data.

Scroll down to uncover the most popular topics, the most active Twitter accounts, and other characteristics that show exactly how police departments utilize Twitter.

New Advancement in Traditional Failure Fall-Back Systems Retains Security and Capability of P25 Systems During Site Failure.

Radio Systems survivability through failover
Public Safety radio systems are built for survivability so that communications work when needed. An important aspect of survivability is failover. Failover ensures that when parts of the overall system fail – either due to component issues or natural/man-made disasters – that the system continues to operate. Traditional system design incorporates redundancy for all critical components.

Failsoft: Failover when a digital trunked radio system can no longer “trunk”
The term “Failsoft” refers to any failover condition that causes a digital trunked radio system to not trunk. This is most commonly caused by a loss of the control channel that subscriber radios use when communicating to the towers to assign a resource. Traditionally in this state, all transmitters (channels) turn on and operate in a ‘conventional’ repeater mode. Subscriber radios are able to recognize this state and switch to a predetermined frequency.

In most systems, several talkgroups share a frequency. Some talkgroups may not be assigned a failsoft frequency and these talkgroups will cease to operate during the failsoft period. If a particular failsoft frequency has also failed, the talkgroups assigned to that frequency will be off the air.

Enhanced Failsoft: maintaining digital security when trunking is lost
Today, many users of modern P25 digital systems are unfamiliar with conventional analog radio systems. Using conventional systems effectively to maintain radio capabilities requires experience or training to understand the. The differences include:

• In an analog system, one radio user can override and talk over another, interrupting urgent messages
• Most analog signals are not encrypted, and all digital systems that fail over to analog systems lose encryption
• Roaming between sites is done manually with adjustment of the knob position to select new channels. The talk-group does not follow the user as in a trunked radio system
• Conventional radio systems do not support user authentication

With current trunked digital P25 systems, the average user is unaware how the system operates and what safety it creates in radio transmission. These include:

• Encrypted radio and data transmission free of public and criminal scanning
• Users are authenticated through automated Unit ID capabilities, while rogue users are denied
• Anyone roaming between tours within a given system, or an adjoining system with interoperability gateways, can use the encrypted Unit ID capabilities

Failsoft Mode: deals with system failures and network connection issues in trunked P25 systems
When a trunked P25 system has a failure from a site or repeater, it goes into failsoft mode, greatly limiting user capabilities. In current failsoft mode, several limitations are placed on most radio manufacturers’ systems. These include:

• The digital signal is no longer possible, forcing it into analog mode
• Users must manually switch onto the appropriate conventional channels
• The Unit ID feature is lost; dispatchers can no longer identify users
• Automatic roaming is lost
• Trunking features are lost
• Rogue users can use and listen to the system, overriding emergency calls

Harris Corporation: changing how Failsoft works, protecting the trunked P25 system features
In its Enhance Failsoft with Security mode, the Harris P25 system solves these issues, resulting in:

• Any repeater in the sites can assume Control Channel responsibility, not just a pre-determined few, reducing the probability a Failsoft event occurs
• All sites maintain a list of authorized users. Users are authenticated even if connection to the core is lost
• All calls remain encrypted
• Unit ID and Call Priority is maintained
• No user action is required
• Automatic roaming is supported
• Trunked operations maintained
• Interference mitigation maintained—talk groups steered away from interfered channels
• Each site automatically broadcasts on pre-defined frequencies

Users see very little change. No rogue users can scan or use the system. Radio frequencies remain efficient, ensuring the best signal.

This article is a cross-post partnership with Bright Blue Line, celebrating the global spirit of law enforcement cooperation, innovation and support.

Jump

What have I gotten myself into? I agreed to jump without even asking what it was, or where was I going to land. I think the last words replied were, “Let’s do this.” It is a leap I do not regret. The landing is amazing and the Power of 1 is as incredible today as it has ever been.

Imagine that Power of 1 for locating a missing child or globally trafficked human slaves! The Power of 1 is the global network of communications. The Power of 1 is Lauri Stevens at ConnectedCops. The Power of 1 is the March 21^, 2012 Global Tweet-a-Thon. The Power of 1 is the thousands of tweets directed to #poltwt.

The policing profession is often criticized for operating in a vacuum. The hierarchical command structure and assignment specialization creates a fragmented environment that regularly compromises congruity of operations. Right hand versus Left hand syndrome.

Breaking the Chains

Over the course of a day; officers enslaved by the same static command models, in the same traditional police organizations, struggling with the same challenges and the same cultures of resistance to innovative ideas broke those chains with a simple #poltwt.

How broken were those chains? Over 200 agencies from 10 countries, speaking 23 languages posting nearly 50,000 tweets. This first in the history of social media, in law enforcement, and in the technological culture of today invited the world on a police “virtual ride-along.”

The Power of 1 shined brightly for this magnificent fraternity of blue. On March 21, 2012, we operated globally in a seamless effort. Information via Tweets was transparently shared between agencies, media and citizens. A voice across the pond also advocating this Power of 1 has prepared several great articles at Nathan Constable

Envelope Pusher

Lauri Stevens, who I’ve come to know as an innovator and envelope pusher served as the catalyst to this movement; the Power of 1. This orchestrated effort costs absolutely nothing to participate in, and the simple investment of time paid the dividends of creating history.

I’d like to believe that as a Chief of Police, I’m an early adaptor to this medium. Actually Lauri bestowed me with a title of “Twief.” I’m trusting her that it is complimentary. Honestly, after the initial agreement to help promote the Tweet-a-Thon with a supporting statement on her flyer, I was still fuzzy about the significance.

Then I saw that first tweet assigned to #poltwt and immediately realized just how significant it was and would be. That  Power of 1 Tweet sparked a revolution. It signaled that law enforcement has the ability to harness the power of communications, technological cooperation and collective effort on a singular area of emphasis.

Get Wet

I’ve posted before that Chiefs of Police in social media are like cats in cold water. Scary to watch as they enter, but doable. Efforts like the Global Tweet-a-Thon help warm the water in the social media tub.

If I was to encourage law enforcement to hop or tip a toe into the waters of social media, I simply need to refer to the Power of 1; #poltwt. Read for yourself. A body of knowledge has been developed for best practice policies for taking the plunge into social media.

The waters are no longer murky. People like Lauri Stevens and many others around this globe continue to push and practice the best of what working together through transparent and immediate information sharing produces.

Personal Influence of Social Media  

Earlier I posted about the “Stretch of Social Media” and then reposted an update titled the “Blessings of Social Media.” A young officer & friend was diagnosed with leukemia, and after battling through, he emerged victorious.

He sent a picture of himself holding a piece of paper simply reading “I Beat Cancer.” I asked my PIO to post it to our Facebook with a prayer of thanks. It went viral reaching almost a million people.

While Beyoncé and the Lebron James draw a million daily likes over posts about breakfast jelly, we serve in a mid-size city in south Louisiana. The Power of 1 post in giving thanks for this officer stretches beyond that simple paper sign.

What might a cop from Cajun Country have in common with a 12-year-old boy from the UK? The Power of 1; #SuperJosh. This hash tag connects me to a social media superstar loved and supported by cops literally around the world. They even dance  the gangnam for him.

Another Brother in Blue, @SgtGaryWatts serves his community, and through social media, supports his friend #SuperJosh who suffers neuromuscular disabilities. Yes, I think it’s the Sergeant @gangnam999 doing the dance moves.

Cats to Water No More

What have I gotten myself into? A wonderful community of amazing people no longer limited by time, distance or communications. Sincerely engaging one another through the various social media platforms builds a network, a community, and an opportunity to step out of that tub, and dive into an exciting ocean. The Power of 1; #poltwt.

Did you participate or follow the World-Wide Virtual Police Tour? What are your thoughts about policing in social media? How often should we do #poltwt (more than once per year?). What should we do differently? Please contribute your thoughts on these questions below.

Related articles

• Government Technology even gave Chief Silverii a Shout Out in this article covering the Global Tweet-a-Thon
• Calgary police join worldwide tweet-a-thon (cbc.ca)
• Omaha police to take part in tweet-a-thon (journalstar.com)
• Bethlehem Police to Participate in First Global Tweet-a-Thon(bethlehempolice.wordpress.com)
• Windsor Police Service joins world’s first global police tweet-a-thon(blogs.windsorstar.com)
• Palo Alto police to host virtual ride-along through Twitter(mercurynews.com)
• Police lead the world in Twitter campaign to keep us in know(manchestereveningnews.co.uk)

Chief Scott Silverii

Image tweeted by @russwebt during #poltwt

A quite amazing thing happened on Friday 22 March that brought the law enforcement and policing community closer together. The world became a smaller place thanks to social media and a special event. But putting all the charts and graphs aside, what did it actually achieve?

The global police Twitter day, known by the hashtag #poltwt, was developed by Lauri Stevens and involved more than 200 law enforcement agencies and individuals which is quite an achievement. The stated purpose was to highlight the work of officers around the world but also to show how they are using social media to support policing activities. This was done from 8am on 22 March 2013 around the world.

For me it was an exciting day that brought with it some highlights and was a show of strength by bringing officers together from many countries. It was another step on the path of demonstrating to colleagues what can be achieved by using social media, and showing that it really is now part of frontline policing. Discovering and using social media is a journey and within any organisation people will be moving at different speeds along the road. Events such as the global Twitter day can help to accelerate things for some people.

Reading the tweets from around the world was fascinating as it highlighted both similarities and differences. There were some common themes:
• everyone wanted to make a difference and improve lives
• conversations and communication were seen as essential
• residents wanted to know more about policing and local officers
• photographs of dogs and horses are always welcome!

The interest in the event was evident in the tweets that were received and the level of involvement people wanted to have. In Greater Manchester Police we saw people sending message throughout the day, asking questions during a two-hour session, and being keen to learn more about what each of the neighbourhood policing teams were doing. It was great to see not just police officers taking part. Local people wanted to get involved by making their voice heard. This was also seen with the latest community reporters taking their time to go on patrol with GMP neighbourhood officers. They were then able to add their own perspective onto global police twitter day.

It was 24 hours that brought the world of policing and law enforcement closer together and helped to develop the conversations between officers and the people they serve. I am sure there will be more to come now that the world has been made a little smaller.