DISQUS

Sing a Song for Safety: They’re Talking About You: Social Media and Public Safety

  • cornea503 · 1 year ago
    You are absolutely right on the value of some of these services. The organization (law enforcement) I work for blocks many of these for regular users but has allowed access to certain groups access them. They find that they can gather important information from sites like youtube. They have a group investigators dedicated to finding gang information on these sites. On the same token, I bet there are countless of working hours lost to these sites in organizations which do not block them. Not to mention all child and teen safety issues we have which have came to light in the last couple of years.
  • richpalmer · 1 year ago
    Oh, yes. I agree that there are persons in certain roles that should have ready access and others that should not.

    I believe that we do need to focus on the fact that these exist and we should use them as tools to monitor our agencies, our communities and more. If we can use them productively they are a tremendous benefit. And... agencies need to hold people accountable. If you close your community to the outside world and the things happening you may not be as productive as you could/should be. And you become isolated and out-of-reach.

    But, if your personnel know that there are expected limits and one or more persons abuses them, don't punish the community as a whole entity. Deal with those that are abusing the right and the system.

    Obviously there are many safety issues to which all of us in public safety try to enlighten our communities. Education is as important as enforcement. Awareness can lead to better education, as well.

    Thanks very much for your comment, cornea503!