Police use of social media (part 2)
This is Part Two of a three-part series discussing police use of social media.
It’s an approximate 10 minute read.
In Part One we began to discuss the various issues surrounding police use of social media, particularly focusing on Twitter, from the reasons there was a push to close individual police accounts to the most common groups of police users and why so many choose anonymity. In this piece we’ll discuss two of the most detrimental issues around police use of social media; sexual misconduct and anonymous accounts.
This piece, at times, heavily focuses on the negative aspects of “police Twitter” but, as with all discussion pieces, should be read in totality of this three-part series, and within context and recognition that I am a huge advocate of police and their use of social media.
Sexual misconduct
Editor’s note: This was written before the sentencing in Sarah Everard’s murder, but an edit has been made to reflect this.
One side of “police Twitter”, few want to recognise and discuss, certainly publicly, is the amount of sexual misconduct committed (from Code of Ethics violations to criminal offences) both with colleagues and members of the public.
The worst part of this being that these officers (across many ranks) aren’t behaving this way through personal (as in non-police identifying) or anonymised accounts, but their (unofficial) police accounts, where many of us know which service or role they do. If they feel safe enough to do this from their public accounts, it does lead many of us to wonder, and worry, about the attitudes, behaviours and acts they commit in other ways.
Such is the (often known) commonality of this abuse of power and position, which I recently discussed in a small Twitter thread, I now keep a list of officers/accounts to steer clear of and when I recently wrote some vague tweets inferring publicly “moral men” were often the worst offenders, had senior leaders ask me if they needed to speak to colleagues about their behaviour. Fortunately, for them, I was referring to a military man this time, but the immediate presumption of their colleagues was extremely (and disappointingly) telling.
Given the organisation is inherently risk averse it is therefore natural, when faced with the official complaints services do receive about sexual misconduct, that they simply prevent officers having an avenue to commit such acts. However, it is important to remember that sexual misconduct also happens in stations, from police constables to senior leaders and chief constables; no individual or service is immune, but I do believe that social media makes it easier and is not considered the same severity as physical sexual misconduct and harassment would be.
There was much media fanfare recently around 2,000 officers being accused of sexual misconduct, which demonstrated another painful example of siege mentality, where individuals reject any and all criticism with vitriol, even when such critique is valid and evidence-based. Because, let’s get real here; even if we assign the 2,000 allegations (and they were all charged) to frontline officers only (not including staff), which is currently around 130,000 people, it’s a statistical guarantee so many will be accused, especially over a four year period in which this figure was calculated.
Zero tolerance around sexual misconduct in police should, of course, be the end goal, as it should for all of society, but it’s not realistic, and much work is still needed in this area. As one of the founding police principles from Robert Peel states: “the police are the public and the public are the police.” So, whilst many in the organisation are highly defensive, we do have to make sure that the anger is appropriate and proportionate.
The worst thing we can do is pretend sexual misconduct doesn’t happen (I’ve publicly shared several times before that I support both women and men in police, sexually harassed and assaulted by colleagues) or fail to take appropriate action, but we must not punish the majority for the minority and keep our outrage constructive.
Anonymity and retired police accounts
In part one, I called anonymous and retired police accounts the “most problematic” groups in reference to reputational harm to the organisation and before I share why, it’s important we discuss the reasons why so many choose anonymity and the positives that they can, and do, bring. And, as I will explain below, I include myself in the category of being “problematic” to the organisation for many reasons, despite holding a public-facing account.
Since the sentencing in Sarah Everard’s murder, there has been much discussion and argument (especially from members of the public and academics) for all officers to have public accounts but it’s a naive argument, when not knowing and understanding the organisational factors that contribute to the push for anonymity for so many.
The most obvious positive for anonymous accounts being, officer safety. If they are using named accounts and they arrest someone particularly violent, there is potential for them to be targeted outside of the job, something we saw in the horrific case of an Essex officer who was stabbed 11 times on his doorstep (yet still managed to apprehend the offender). Given that everyone from mainstream media to elected officials, including the Home Secretary (at times), are encouraging a strong anti-police narrative in an increasingly violent society, are we really expecting individual officers not to take risk mitigating measures for their personal safety? Especially when Government figures demonstrate that, statistically, 84 police officers a day are assaulted; a figure which has been sharply rising, annually, over recent years.
There are hundreds (if not, thousands) of anonymous accounts who are truly beneficial to the organisation, such as TheMetSkipper, sharing police content or viral videos with intelligent and considered perspective, tweeting well within the parameters of the Code of Ethics. I can also think of DC Defective who regularly discusses his role within child abuse, informing the public of how he and his team have arrested / charged offenders after countless hours of work. And we have BrickCop who uses scene-specific and individual officers depictions of police life to boost morale for many on “police Twitter”. Accounts such as these offer great insight into policing, balanced perspective and add a great deal to the societal conversation on law and order, and the organisation itself.
In their official capacity, police have to remain apolitical and even publicly criticising the organisation or making a risqué joke can cause professional consequences for individuals. One wrong (albeit context-specific) tweet can mean you’re staring into formal disciplinary proceedings and ultimately, loss of job. I know of Superintendents threatening well-respected leaders (both with public-facing accounts) with misconduct procedures for daring to publicly challenge the organisation around its leadership and wellbeing offerings (or lack thereof). There are high stakes to having a public-facing account, which is why so many choose anonymity, so that they may share (even reasonable and respectful) opinions and perspectives without fear of job loss. And that’s even before you consider the added pressure of now needing to take official complaints via social media.
Anonymous accounts, by their very nature, are difficult to risk mitigate and virtually impossible to control, even outside of policing. These are accounts which usually have a generic image as their profile photo and no police service website listed. Most of the time, you can only tell they’re police by which accounts they’re following or the topics they tweet about. However, we must not forget that some anon accounts are purely for personal reasons and not because they want to discuss policing but simply want to engage in conversations without telling people they’re police, and a personal life is their right.
But, let’s be honest here; it’s extremely rare that an anonymous account is ever truly anonymous should you wish to dig deep enough. Police are taught to mistrust everyone (even each other) and have enquiring minds. All it takes is a few job or location-specific tweets, look to see who else they’re engaging with and you can find out their service and potentially names. Or, you build a personal relationship with the person behind the account and they will reveal their identity. I’ve become on and offline friends with some incredible people who run anonymous accounts, and also support many people behind anon accounts with their mental and emotional health.
If you really want to find out the names of the anonymous accounts, there are steps you can take with Twitter but are we really expecting members of public to know this and take the necessary steps for discovery, before reputational harm is caused to the organisation? The same public who will continually ask ‘if the is road closed’ as you’re putting said sign out? Also, you can falsify the details you use to set up such accounts. And whilst “police Twitter” may be good at spotting the “Walts” (those who aren’t police but pretend that they are), the general population isn’t which, again, adds to reputational harm, even if such accounts aren’t the responsibility of the organisation to counter (to a point).
Several of these large, anonymous accounts are highly relatable and often use dark humour, which is a widespread coping mechanism in uniformed services, so is it any wonder they attract the digital crowd and engagement they do? The NPCC have recently (internally) started to advise against engaging with such anonymous accounts, citing Code of Ethics and potential disciplinary action for it and, understandably, it’s causing a lot of friction.
Dark humour and vitriolic rhetoric are not easy to define, and therefore discipline, when content (and engagement with it) transcends from dark humour to hate speech etc. but there is a line and we do need to get better at defining it, so that everyone knows their boundaries and can make informed decisions about their social media habits.
Unfortunately, some of these accounts thrive on moral outrage and all the NPCC (ironically) are doing by advising against engagement with them, is allow them to position themselves as persecuted victims to the “woke brigade” instead of recognising them for the often hateful rhetoric they should be challenged for, even if many of us genuinely enjoy their humorous content at times. To many of us, the NPCC’s recent move has merely demonstrated what happens when you don’t address a problem early enough (despite repeated warnings from many).
Police are, of course, entitled to personal lives and perspectives but being police isn’t the same as being a hairdresser, for example. It’s a job founded on morality, which is why the NPCC is encouraging police standard departments to question officers’ engagement with some accounts given their extreme nature, at times. We wouldn’t think twice, for example, in questioning an officers’ integrity if they were engaging with neo-Nazi social media accounts and groups and these police-adjacent accounts are becoming no different with their extremism, at times.
But we have to ask ourselves a difficult question here; are the inflammatory, anonymous and/or retired police accounts and people a cause or effect of wider cultural issues within policing? Many officers feel the organisation has become “too soft” on crime and don’t agree with the way services are run (especially around resourcing and wellbeing) and, coupled with the inability to voice such concerns, rightly fearing detrimental professional consequences, we therefore encourage more extreme views, that are then shared anonymously, with little recourse.
Though the anonymous accounts can do a lot of damage to organisational reputation, so can resigned / retired officers (anonymous or public) who sometimes whip people into an angry frenzy with their “celebrity” status, with outdated information and/or attitudes, now they are free from (potential) professional consequences. They are not all like this I hasten to add, but again it is the loud minority who spoil it for the majority.
The most ‘Twitter famous’ retiree being John Sutherland, who regularly writes and comments, with informed, balanced and engaging knowledge, on police practices and perspectives and is incredibly well respected by “police Twitter”. There are many retired officers I consider friends and they still bring a wealth of experience to societal discussions around policing and criminality in general. I can also think of several people such as Ian Acheson, retired prison governor, who regularly writes informative, measured and extremely knowledgable tweet threads around extremism and terrorism.
Unfortunately, even when resigned / retired officers hold public-facing accounts, they can still be criticised by many in the organisation who sometimes perceive their views to be incorrect or outdated, even when they’re not, such is the fast-paced nature of change in policing. Many of us working on the periphery of policing painfully watch “police Twitter” self-destruct at times for no other reason than there are too many different opinions to discuss, and everyone wants theirs heard and validated.
But back to the “problematic” anon and retired accounts; I can’t help but feel that many are attracted to such extreme, hateful, anonymous / retired police accounts because it is an outlet for their, often rightful, frustrations and anger about the way they are treated in their services. If individuals feel disenfranchised from their teams, leaders and services, especially within the current anti-police narrative, they’re going to seek out people and opportunities to have their voices heard and validated, which is what these vocal accounts offer.
Given the above, we could even go as far to say (in some cases) that our officers and staff are vulnerable to, and being groomed and radicalised by, such accounts. It’s not rocket science; it’s human nature. But, again, we have to ask ourselves why so many people behind these accounts (public or anon) are angry i.e. if it is a cause and effect of organisational factors. We don’t recruit embittered individuals; we create them. If we force so many to remain silent throughout their careers or treat them abysmally, is it any wonder that they’ll seek to voice their concerns and experiences and have those views validated by others? To have a voice free of constraint is a very powerful tool in life.
If the NPCC are that worried about such extremist views, people and accounts being publicly engaged with without consequence, might I first suggest they start looking at its own leadership (and lack of social media engagement) and that of our 43 Chiefs, who set the tone for our people? You’ve only got to look at the way Chief Constable Nick Adderley (if Carlsberg made Chiefs!) runs his official account, the tone of the official Northants Comms tweets and how he regular encourages his officers to tweet, to recognise what good, and engaging, “police Twitter” looks like.
Twitter, as I wrote previously, is a far more open social network than others, meaning we’re accessible to each other in ways we’ve never experienced before. Suddenly “Joe Public” can get a “like”, “retweet” or even reply from Hollywood actors, making them feel peers instead of people to be idolised in glossy magazines and interviews. Police twitter is no different. A PC on probation can now have their timeline or specific tweets engaged with, and praised, by senior leaders and even chief constables from their service or across the country and we shouldn’t downplay how powerful that validation can be, in an ever-stretched organisation, where some chiefs are becoming less accessible, not more.
All we’re going to do by shutting down semi-public, individual police accounts who predominantly abide by the Code of Ethics (though may make the occasional blunder, which should receive appropriate action) is push them to become anonymous, allowing an even greater number of accounts and potentially extreme perspectives to be shared, which we can’t risk mitigate, or sanction when necessary, causing untold and continual, reputational damage.
And though many senior leaders / chief officers et al (myself included, at times) will say anonymous / retired accounts cause “reputational harm”, I would also argue that many are actually improving the reputation of the organisation because they’re giving the general public (including potential recruits) a more realistic depiction (and therefore accurate reputation) of the organisation and working within it. If the organisation, and many within it, don’t like the internal reputation that is now becoming publicly known, it would behove them to do more work to improve it.
Almost all leaders, senior leaders and chief officers I’ve spoken to (unofficially) on the issue of police use of social media have cited “reputational harm” and “sexual misconduct” as the reason why so many teams and services are shutting down public individual accounts, either voluntarily or after request. However, one Chief Superintendent I spoke to said the opposite; that their service and corporate comms team wanted to become more active and engaging on social media but that the EECC legislation was actually the blocker, given they would have to receive reports 24/7 via all social media channels and accounts, which is extremely time and labour intensive.
The rightful counter to all of the above, of course, is that if we trust officers/staff to look after the public and save lives then we should trust them to run a social media account, but not everyone should be police given their attitudes and behaviour, and inability to do the job (and many officers have freely said that, both publicly and privately about many). And whilst a minority pervasively, and without apparent consequence (even when they have been reported), continue to behave in such a way, they ruin it for the overwhelming majority who want to use it to connect with colleagues, discover best practice and genuinely want to educate the public to the realities of policing.
It’s also extremely important to note that I am considered a risk to reputational damage, and harm, to the organisation (even before publishing this series) as I regularly discuss its failings around leadership and wellbeing. The organisation can’t risk mitigate against me, control my voice and actions, shut me down or tell officers and staff to stop engaging with me, which, believe me, causes a great deal of anger to many and why I include myself in this category, despite the dozens of lives I have been credited with changing and saving in the last three years.
It’s important we discuss the negatives and extreme detrimental behaviour we see from some people and accounts (public or anon), because nothing changes if we don’t, but we also have to recognise that, as an organisation, our current actions and stance on social media (which I’ll discuss in more detail, next week) is, and will continue to, push more toward (potentially hostile) anonymity, not less.
As an organisation, we are fostering the problem, not the solution.
Part III (final) will be published Nov 2.
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