Despite Twitter Backlash, New York Police Dept. Plans to Expand Social Media Efforts

For the first few months of his second tour as commissioner of the New York Police Department, William J. Bratton has been consumed in large part with reshaping perceptions of officers. He told a closed-door meeting of chiefs and supervisors in January that his administration would use social media to bring positive police stories directly to the public. “How do we utilize that in a way to get our message out more significantly without having to rely on the media to tell our story?” Bratton asked rhetorically, according to a video of the meeting.

So at a social media strategy meeting when a detective in charge of the department’s Twitter account floated the idea of soliciting photos of ordinary people posing with officers, it hardly struck anyone as risky. It was rapidly approved, and the detective chose a hashtag: #myNYPD. The response was immediate, if not in the way Bratton had anticipated. Twitter users provided not smiling snapshots but a rushing commentary on every controversy and harsh police tactic of the last few years, including the stop-and-frisk policy, the bloodying of Occupy Wall Street protesters and police shootings. The flood of uncomfortable photographs rattled some officers on the street, who quietly questioned the wisdom of opening up to the crowds on Twitter. Many on social media scoffed at what they said was a public-relations debacle. But to Zachary Tumin, tapped by Bratton to drag the department into the roiling waters of Twitter and other social media, it was a signal to the city and its police officers that the department was comfortable trying new things, even if the blowback was large and public.