Police use of social media (part I)

Disclaimer: I write this as a discussion piece from outside policing.
This is Part I and a 10 min read.

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Anyone who’s been on Twitter in the last few months will know that police use of social media is a hot topic and seen several highly engaging personal police accounts shut down, citing a push from services to “streamline” their accounts into official (corporate) communication accounts.

The important contributory factor to this seemingly sudden push, is that the European Emergency Communication Code (EECC) was accepted into law in December 2020. This was interpreted to mean that police accounts (whether official, or individual officers running their own accounts) are required to receive queries and complaints 24/7 via social media, appropriately triage them and respond accordingly.  The organisation was rightly given a relaxed deadline to enforce this due to the pandemic but we’re beginning to see it now being pushed through.

There was also a recent study, with results outlined by Chief Constable Gavin Stephens, demonstrating public views on police use of social media, which many seem to be citing, to close such accounts. What’s important to note from the study, however, is that it only received 25k responses across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which is a negligible figure when stacked against the 48 million active social media users in the UK.  

The study also fails to take into account that every social media platform is targeted, and used by, differing demographics and will therefore be engaged with in differing manners, and that’s even before you consider issues surrounding each algorithm and the companies and people that manipulate them (financially or otherwise) for clout and influence.

However, given that, as of 2020, there were 16.7 million Twitter users, with 43% of them using the platform several times a day, it’s safe to say that social media is not going anywhere any time soon, which is why it will pay the organisation to invest in their use of social media, not minimise their involvement with it.

I’m going to focus this discussion on Twitter, as this is the social media platform which I believe is the most contentious, yet arguably can have the greatest benefit to both the public and many within the organisation.

The reason Twitter is both beneficial and problematic to police is because its algorithm is far more open than other networks (posts can be read by anyone and don’t need to be financially promoted like Facebook and Instagram) but it is also the one that affords a great deal of anonymity and that, I fear, is the real reason services are beginning to push back so hard.  The organisation rarely likes anything it can’t risk mitigate and subsequently control, and analyse. 

There is currently another (sporadic) police Twitter survey circulating the platform, pushed by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC), but many of us objectively reading the questions, and knowing the organisational stance on police social media, recognise it is skewed to create the answer it needs; to justify shutting down accounts.  It’s extremely telling to many of us that the NPCC are notoriously one of the least engaging and communicative of all major police (or police body) accounts on Twitter.  Even the College is more engaging and that’s saying something. 

We are also failing to acknowledge the performance of “bell curve feedback”.  In layman’s terms this appraisal mechanism recognises that most of us will only offer feedback to individuals or organisations when our experiences are either extremely positive or negative, leaving the vast majority to feel neutral (both good and bad) or not feel strongly enough to offer feedback. The “silent majority” of the public, who support police, that so many in police discuss, when they feel under attack on social media.

Types of accounts

Police Twitter is predominantly split into four groups of people/accounts:

Official, service-level accounts such as the Met, with many thousands of followers, are considered “broadcast” accounts, meaning that their main purpose is to put out information, instead of actively engaging with their audience.  The only real exceptions tend to be when these accounts are flooded with people tagging them about an incident (physical world or online) and they are forced to respond, either to individual tweets or with a published statement and their tone will be corporate, and fact-based.  We often see this when there is a viral video involving violence and/or police.

Then we have official smaller neighbourhood accounts – what the organisation appears to be pushing for currently – that serve a similar function but are more responsive and engaging with their audience. They tend to proactively publish details of local issues, such as major road incidents, and will respond quicker to public queries they receive.  Their tone tends to be slightly more conversational and informal and the account will likely be more engaging (and will, ironically, have a larger reach), than the bigger, broadcast accounts. 

We then have the individual police accounts, those run by officers who set up personal accounts to document their police shifts, and views.  They are publicly recognisable as police, and will often have their service website detailed in their bios, with disclaimers not to report crime to them as individuals. Some will actively engage in wider discussions around police and criminality, using their account to document their roles and jobs attended, whilst others will also include parts of their personal lives etc.

For me, the high level of digital engagement the organisation is seeking with neighbourhood accounts, is easily demonstrated by (ironically) the individual, anonymous account of ResponsePS, or Tree Cop as he’s known.  He has less than 10,000 followers but because he has built an engaging community that tags him in photos of trees using the hashtag #TreeClub, his reach is now regularly over 2 million a month, demonstrating the power of good social media use.

Lastly, are the two most problematic groups of all: anonymous and retired police accounts.  I say problematic because these are the Twitter groups that pose the greatest risk to organisational reputation, but are least able to be monitored and controlled. They absolutely have their place though, and there are many reasons anonymity is sought, which is something I’ll discuss in more depth in part two of this piece.

Community engagement

This big push for change around police use of social media, as I see it, stems from wanting/needing to improve understanding and engagement with communities.  But what a lot of decision-makers in the organisation (and partner bodies, such as the College) fail to realise is that the days of having a physically designated (and proactively visible) neighbourhood police officer (though those roles still exist), allowing regular opportunities to discuss and counter problems within those communities are gone.  

Social media is today’s community engagement. And instead of “getting amongst our people”, we’re doing the opposite by retreating and pulling up the metaphorical drawbridge because we believe it’s easier and safer. But social media is only going to continue to play larger parts in our lives, as younger generations are brought up on it and living their lives on it, so it benefits the organisation to understand and utilise it more, not less. 

Unfortunately, with such platforms and their large reach, we do have to recognise that many posts will have wording that will be subjectively received by members of the public, potentially leading to service or IOPC-level complaints.  As a result of that, we need to invest in social media training of our officers and staff as well as our corporate communications teams who can quickly assess a social media complaint and reply. Some complaints may be legitimate and require reflective practice, or other disciplinary measures to the individual in question, but some need to be robustly defended by the service as a “no case to answer”.

That being said, I do understand the organisational reticence to fully sanction the use of personal accounts on social media.  When the news broke of Sarah Everard (editor’s note, this piece was written and finalised before the recent sentencing in the case), especially when the then serving Met officer was arrested (though not yet charged), some of the tweets many of us saw from officers (including many I respected) were deplorable, seeping in misogyny and victim-blaming.

Social media also allows the general public to see the rough side of policing. The side that most aren’t used to because it happens behind closed doors or in the middle of the night, which social media now brings into the public gaze.  We have seen this repeatedly throughout the pandemic with multiple protests and riots, with public order policing causing moral outrage at times, even if said outrage was neither educated nor proportionate.  Shaking viral videos showing edited snapshots of police and whilst our organisation attempts to continue to “police by consent”, our officers’ ability to do so dwindles on a daily basis, after a decade of budget and workforce cuts, laying bare the reality of attempting to police an increasingly violent society with minimal protective equipment and organisational support.

When such videos are shared, the frontline often come out in force to try and defend an officers’ actions (whether or not there is clear wrongdoing by the officer), or explain them to the lay person as it ignites, in my opinion, something known as “siege mentality”.  That is to say that there are shared feelings of victimhood and defensiveness (by the frontline) against perceived hostility toward them, (and there is a strong anti-police narrative currently) so any potentially correct criticism of police gets dismissed as “armchair expert” opinions and nothing more.  Unfortunately, these videos and subsequent defensive mentality, do nothing for positive community engagement, even if it is understandable human nature from both sides, at times. 

However some of the official accounts don’t help themselves either (yes, I’m looking at you Met Taskforce), as they often use acronyms which can be incredibly confusing, even to those of us who are informed to police practices and specific teams.  Are we really expecting “Joe Public” to know that “TSG” stands for Territorial or Tactical Support Group, or that they would take the time to look it up if they didn’t, and know what they do in their roles? 

Equally, I once had a discussion with a corporate police account (who did engage with me, probably only because of the size of my following) who described the capture of a suspect who had had “sex with a minor”.  When I pointed out the need for correct terminology to be used – rape – they stated that they had to use the same wording as the court ruling.  Whilst that may be the case, I highlighted to them that they needed to explain this in their thread because, even as an informed member of the public, it came across to many of us that they were using incorrect terminology, which could potentially prevent future victims from reporting, which they accepted. However, this same wording was sadly used by CC Gavin Stephens in a NPCC blog discussing police use of social media, highlighting that there is often a gap between police language and how it is used with, and understood by, the wider public. 

Dual purpose

The social media study cited by Mr Stephens, together with many leaders and services are, in my view, failing to take into consideration that Twitter (more than other social media platforms) plays a critical dual role for policing. 

The first being information broadcasting and community engagement, but the second being both a resource for police themselves, and a social space (whether or not you agree with the latter elements).

According to the study “Respondents who don’t have any connection to policing mostly say they are not interested in conversations about policing” citing they can see it as “self-congratulatory, or internal communication being undertaken in a public forum”. 

If that is the case, may I humbly suggest that the dozens of senior leaders and chief officers who regularly post self-congratulatory tweets, as well as corporate service accounts showing weapons seized from “stop searches” or police award ceremonies etc, immediately cease or are we continuing to overtly sanction that it’s one rule for our frontline/individuals but another for corporate comms teams and the upper echelons?  Because what we’re really saying here is that we are allowing, yet again, the views of the public to dictate police policies and practices and that’s a slippery slope. There is a huge difference in listening to, and understanding the concerns of our communities and their needs, and submitting to peer pressure for political fear and favour. 

Twitter, whether people agree with it or not, is a national police “canteen” housing all the good, bad, ugly and indifferent opinions and personalities that comes with that. I’ve seen friendships and romantic relationships being built, best practice shared, support offered across everything from promotions, role changes to mental health and intellectual discussions across just about every aspect of policing, and wider social issues.  

Many long-serving officers and staff will know that the “canteen days” of policing are long gone.  That is to say that most physical canteens have closed, as smaller stations have been sold off and others streamlined, and so has the opportunity for an officer to use them, such is the commonality of single-crewing and failure to meet minimum strength (number of officers) on duty per shift, meaning no protected meal breaks. 

Whilst the (alcoholic) drinking culture that came with the “canteen days” is thankfully dissipating (a positive for many individuals’ physical and mental health), those that do remember their canteen/station bar times often recognise how positive they were for them and their mental, and emotional, health.  It allowed them to get a difficult shift/set into perspective with help from others, encouraged mentorship between different ranks, roles and years of service and a camaraderie between teams.  Our people still need that outlet, and many have found it through social media.  

In the three years since I first connected with police, I have supported around 250 officers and staff, almost all men, on my own.  The vast majority of them have come through Twitter and much of my support remains in direct messages only, because that is what they’re comfortable with.  But that’s a whole other conversation about police wellbeing, and the need for confidential third party support, that the organisation isn’t ready for. 

Another difficult side of police Twitter is the level of pile-ons and in-fighting many of us see between individual accounts.  Everything from professional disagreements which quickly turn into personal attacks to outright mockery, including parody accounts, created with the sole purpose of humiliation.  This is nothing that wouldn’t happen behind closed doors, in stations and canteens, but in a public space can cause a great deal of professional and reputational embarrassment. 

One of the key issues of the EECC driving this change is that officers across all ranks, quite rightly, don’t want the pressure of having to accept crime reports via their accounts 24/7 and subsequent disciplinaries if they miss a direct message, or the member of the public doesn’t feel they treated them well when they did report. Many individual accounts are therefore shutting down even before services drive the directive.  But don’t we all miss voicemails or messages and forget to get back to people? I know I do when I can sometimes receive several dozen messages on Twitter in a day. 

And, I’m also going to make the point, as someone who experienced it first hand during my rape investigation, that poor victim care and attitudes happen with or without social media. We can all have bad days, especially on social media, and that’s not to excuse it but to highlight that we’re all human. 

You’ve only got to follow Chief Supt Ian Drummond from Devon and Cornwall who regularly tweets about the level of calls the contact centre receive, to realise that they’re already struggling with official communication, not including reports now coming in via social media, on top of online reporting already available.  

If the NPCC et al are citing “better engaging” content for our public, as a reason to streamline accounts, then we must include our own officers and staff in that “public”, meaning our partner bodies – the College, NPCC and Oscar Kilo etc – need to start becoming more communicative and engaging themselves because, right now, their silence is painfully telling.

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Part II will be published Tuesday 26 October.

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