The way that police officers use social media during protests in Brighton and Hove has been highlighted by the BBC.
The broadcaster cited the work of Sussex Police and West Midlands Police in an online feature about the changing nature of protests.
It published its feature shortly after it emerged that one Brighton and Hove police chief had become among the most read officers on Twitter during the tuition fees protests just over a week ago.
The BBC said: “The death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 in 2009 has led to searching questions in the police over how to deal with modern protests – not least because of the level of scrutiny via mobile phone footage.
“Police chiefs are finalising their new guidance on public order – but it will include advice on the role of social media.
“Some forces are already using it. West Midlands Police say they used it to counter unfounded rumours that young Muslims were planning to clash with the far-right England Defence League.
“Sussex Police also used Twitter to swiftly rebut accusations that officers were armed with tasers during the UK Uncut demo last week.
“Both forces think social media is helping officers engage with a more diverse range of people – including hardcore protesters who would never talk to a copper on the street.”
The UK Uncut demo saw protesters glue themselves to the window of Topshop in Western Road, Brighton. They also targeted Vodafone, accusing both companies or those running them of illegally avoiding paying tax.
Prolific
Chief Inspector Laurence Taylor, who heads the neighbourhood policing team in Brighton and Hove, is one of the most prolific users of Twitter in Sussex Police.
On Wednesday (8 December) he tweeted frequent updates about the student tuition fees protest at the Clock Tower in Brighton.
He has previously used Twitter during other tuition fees protests and to provide a running commentary at the Smash EDO protest in October.
These have given an overview from Sussex Police’s perspective and have been used to deal with rumours and inaccurate reports from other people.
When students were protesting against tuition fees recently, Chief Inspector Taylor quickly had a huge online audience.
Nick Cloke, head of media relations at Sussex Police, said: “During the protests on Wednesday last week (1 December) Chief Inspector Laurence Taylor was the fourth most trended tweeter in the UK with loads of retweets and reads.
“What we want to use social media for is to extend the ways we engage with people.
“Obviously it’s not geared up for an emergency response.
“But increasingly people don’t just have lives in the physical world but in the online world and we want to engage with them there.
Common sense
“We have people from all over the force displayed on our home page ranging from senior officers and neighbourhood officers to our helicopter unit and also an official news feed.
“We’re keen for people to adopt the same common sense approach in the online world as they would in the physical world.
“So there’s not reams of policy but simple guidance on how to make the most of the technology.”
He added that as officers interact with the public every day they should have an understanding of what is acceptable and appropriate.
Chief Inspector Taylor said: “The key thing for me is that this about engagement.
“You get a dynamic ability to engage with a great number of people, some of who are part of the protest.
Genuine concerns
“You can communicate about their genuine concerns and a second thing is about managing untruths and rumours.
“A good example was a few weeks ago during the student protest when there were lots of rumours about police using tasers.
“They weren’t true and we were able to say that very quickly – that there were no officers deployed with tasers in the city.
“Also, it matches the demographic – the students and younger people who tend to be on a number of these protests.
“It also enables us to communicate with the wider public when there may be disruption to businesses and traffic.
“We can say you might want to avoid Western Road or the Old Steine at the moment.”
He said that using social media like Twitter to communicate – sending out messages and checking what others were saying – sometimes enabled officers to be deployed more efficiently.
In effect it could save money by preventing over-policing and ensuring that officers were where they were most needed.
He said: “We don’t use it for intelligence gathering but it can be helpful, informing me as a commander about issues of genuine concern to protesters.”
He added that he wanted police numbers to be proportionate so that not too many officers were deployed – both to facilitate democratic protest and with one eye on efficiency.
