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.
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One poster, Gary Silvester, said:
“I’m sorry I just don’t see how it can be as personal as individual accounts as that’s what I and many others enjoy. I’m a big supporter of the police.
“Will individuals tweets have to be approved? This whole policy strikes me that you don’t trust the officers completely.”
Social media posts will not need to be approved, the accts will still be run by local teams. We absolutely trust our officers, this is about improving service & responsiveness to the public through social media & giving people a place to find content more easily #AskNYorksPolice https://t.co/veJTO3yFqX
— North Yorkshire Police (@NYorksPolice) March 31, 2021
Another person, Jacqui Stephenson tweeted:
“Given the amount of stations being closed, surely it’s better that individual officers build up the rapport with their local communities using social media.
“A lot of your officers use social media responsibly and engage with the public.
“I’ve often learned a lot from reading the Twitter feed of individual officers. It gives a real insight as to what they are facing as well as showing that they are human beings as well. Using the bland corporate accounts takes that away.”
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”.
Morning everyone, on leave at the moment but just wanted to give you my take on the changes to the @NYorksPolice social media policy 1/2 pic.twitter.com/lFXPqinmb1
— Sgt Paul Cording BEM (@OscarRomeo1268) March 31, 2021
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:
“Residents value the localised information that is made available via these social media channels and I really can’t understand the thinking that has led to these being scrapped.”
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:
“The local media plays a crucial role in sharing trusted information of genuine interest to residents. They could be a real asset to the police in getting important information to local communities who already get their news through established print, online, radio and TV channels. It seems like an own goal by the police that could see them distance themselves from local communities.
“If elected, I will review the operation of the current ‘service-level statement’ and will start by engaging with the local media to explore how we can work together better for the benefit of our communities.”
Independent candidate Keith Tordoff said:
“The closure of individual police officers’ official social media accounts is, I believe, bad for public relations.
“The new accounts until we see how they operate at this point sound rather corporate. I also recognise that the officers’ accounts as they had operated could lead to security breaches, Officer safety and possible promotion of businesses which had needed addressing.
“The officers’ official accounts with directives and supervision of them would have continued to be great for police, public relations and community engagement. The accounts were clearly very popular with the public going by the people commenting against the closure of them.“If elected, I would look to review the decision.”
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.
