NYPD Twitter campaign 'backfires'

[Scrumptious]

NYPD Twitter campaign 'backfires' after hashtag hijacked


his was the original tweet posted by the NYPD asking for users' photos

A plan by the New York Police Department to use Twitter to boost its image seems to have backfired.

Users were asked to tweet a photo of themselves with officers and add the hashtag #myNYPD as part of a social media campaign.

But instead of a steady stream of friendly photos, the hashtag was quickly adopted by users posting images of possible police aggression.

The NYPD said: "Twitter provides an open forum for uncensored exchange."

The original tweet was posted on the NYPD's Twitter feed on Tuesday. Featuring two smiling officers and a member of the public, it encouraged users to send in similar photos.

But while several people did so, the hashtag was also picked up by others who used it to identify tweets containing photos of the NYPD in more hostile situations.

By Wednesday, the hashtag had become one of Twitter's top trending terms.



One photo showed a man being pushed down on to a car bonnet. It was from March 2013 and followed protests in Brooklyn over the death of 16-year-old Kimani Gray who was shot by police.

The protest group Occupy Wall Street tweeted an image of an NYPD police officer advancing towards a crowd with a baton raised.



Many of the photos appeared to be taken by professional photographers at incidents in New York City rather than users' own images.

One from the Associated Press showing a man being held down on the floor by two officers appeared in several tweets.



The NYPD issued a statement on Tuesday evening in response to the activity: "The NYPD is creating new ways to communicate effectively with the community. Twitter provides an open forum for an uncensored exchange and this is an open dialogue good for our city."

Other Twitter interactions that have backfired include US Airways posting an explicit photo in response to a customer's tweet and McDonald's using a hashtag to highlight its farmers that quickly got taken over by people sharing their bad experiences of the burger chain.

source

[RobertX]

Bad cops, bad cops, whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when we come for you?

I hate cops. I fucking do.

[Spud17]

^^

I seriously can't believe the NYPD thought a twitter campaign would be a good idea in the first place. More pics:











New Yorkers didn't just tweet pics and accounts of police brutality, they also named people who'd been shot dead by them, and despite an average of 10000 comments being posted per hour, the NYPD have declined to comment, instead, it retweeted the more favourable ones. The allegations of brutality and mistreatment don't surprise anyone though, so I'm wondering what the NYPD will do with this level of feedback, especially with the world looking on. Meanwhile, residents in Los Angeles have generated their own 'myLAPD' campaign on social media, and it's likely to spread elsewhere. Go twitter.

[RobertX]

Beating up a woman too?

I hope that each officer shown on those pictures get prosecuted and serve life sentences.