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31
Mar 2021
North Yorkshire Police has faced a Twitter backlash after it announced restrictions on officers' social media accounts.
The move will see people encourage to follow centralised accounts rather than those of individual officers.
As part of the changes, Harrogate traffic sergeant Paul Cording and Harrogate traffic constable David Minto, who between them have more than 20,000 Twitter followers, expect to be asked to close their accounts and post on one of eight area accounts run by North Yorkshire Police.
The area accounts will post updates on appeals, safety information and court results rather than the current blend of personal and professional updates from life on the frontline.
A police question and answer session today about the changes under the hashtag #AskNYorksPolice saw criticism of the move.
Some said tweets from a corporate account would be less personal while others asked whether officers would require approval to share posts.
https://twitter.com/NYorksPolice/status/1377250236121354240?s=20
Another person, Jacqui Stephenson tweeted:
But police defended the decision and said officers would continue to build a rapport with the public.
The force added officers' social media content would not require approval and that the move was about “improving the service and responsiveness” to the public.
Sergeant Cording shared two videos explaining his views on the change.
He said while personal accounts have not been asked to be deleted yet, they will be "sometime in the future".
https://twitter.com/OscarRomeo1268/status/1377195501079162880?s=20
Sergeant Cording added that he understood the decision the police had made, but was "disappointed".
The new measures have also been met with concern from candidates to be North Yorkshire’s next police, fire and crime commissioner.
James Barker, Liberal Democrat candidate for the role, said the police needed to “rethink” its decision. He said:
He also expressed concerns about North Yorkshire Police's recent introduction of a service-level statement setting out how it responds to media requests.
The statement says it will not respond to media requests for information relating to incidents on which an article has been posted on its website.
Mr Barker said:
Independent candidate Keith Tordoff said:
The Stray Ferret has approached the Conservative and Labour candidates for comment.
North Yorkshire's Police Fire and Crime Commissioner election will take place on May 6.
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