Public safety agencies and centralized social media: why change is needed

Before I get into this, I should probably explain. This has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, and I get extremely wound up about it. Having written this, it sounds a little ranty, and for that I apologise, but please understand I am British and like to moan about things. Recent events popped this to the top of my grievances list, so I decided to write about it before I move onto the next thing that annoys me. Thank you.

If you’re a public safety agency, like a fire or police department, perhaps the most important aspect of your ‘brand’ is trust. The people who are paying the taxes, which in turn pay for the people and equipment that help keep us all safe need to trust that the information you are putting out there is trustworthy and accessible to all.

Unfortunately, we’re at this point where trust in various privately held, centralized social media platforms is at an all time low. Twitter, and Reddit are of course currently in the headlines because of their issues, but it’s hard to think of a time when Facebook and Instagram haven’t been just as controversial.

These social media sites, are of course, still very popular and still an effective way to reach people — but, crucially, they are now not the only way to reach people. The change in ownership and policies of Twitter, drove masses of people to the decentralized Twitter alternative, Mastodon, for example.

The reason for the success of “traditional” social media sites, is that they make it incredibly easy to share rich content, text, videos, photos with a lot of people without really thinking about it. So it’s easy to understand why over the last few years, you’re just as likely to see a post from your local fire department as you are your gym or dog walking influencer.

Unlike brands, however, the mission of public safety agencies is not to sell, promote, advertise, go viral or whatever else. It’s to inform and potentially save lives, with information we’ve all already paid for.

This content should not be gated behind a social media platform that wants to suck as much data from the computers and phones of the people that attempt to consume it as possible — that’s not fair.

That’s why I think we need a change. I think we need a standard, and regulation, that all public safety agencies must make public facing communications accessible via a multitude of channels. I’m not saying they can’t use social media, but it should be law that they can’t only use social media.

A post made by a public safety agency should be made in an open format, that can be relayed multiple times over via whatever channel wants to relay it, so that the people, not the social media companies, can choose how they consume it.

Imagine an ungated, untracked, and otherwise un-monetized RSS feed used by your local police department to let you know what is going on in your area. We can make this happen — we have the technology!

If you’re involved in communications for a public safety agency, for example as a PIO or similar, please please, take the initiative, and free your content from the grasps of privately held, centralized social media as soon as you possibly can.