Not the silliness of the latest legal marketing conference, where they are busy twitting about how to appear credible rather than just tell the truth. They shame themselves. In Boynton Beach, Florida, the cops have discovered how to use twitter to shame and circumvent the courts. Another use of this technological marvel.

Via Boynton Beach New Times :

According to Stephanie Slater, the department’s public information officer, the idea came about after the BBPD fielded an uptick in complaints on its Facebook page about traffic zipping by schools. The department has been web savvy since the MySpace era, and today they run an active Twitter account. The BBPD bosses are “very supportive” of social media, Slater says. “It allows us to engage the community.”

The plan is for Slater to camp out with an officer as a school zone throughout the day. If someone gets pinched barreling through, the account will shoot out photos of the radar gun or of the offending vehicle. Slater says they’ll be careful to not broadcast any information that will ID drivers. “We’re not looking to do this to violate anyone’s rights or to embarrass anyone,” she says. “This is just to educate.”

Notice the use of marketer-speak “engage the community”? But is posting photos of the cars stopped and tickets on twitter “engaging,” or educational?  They can claim a benign purpose all they want, but it doesn’t alter the fact that they are posting images of people who have yet to be found guilty of anything.  And by they, I mean the police. If it turns out the person hasn’t violated the law, do they delete their twits six months later?  Have they come up with a means by which to erase the image from the minds of those who follow their hashtag?



While it’s perfectly understandable that local residents applaud the police for enforcement of speed laws in a school zone, the next step of immediately posting embarrassing photos of the alleged violators on twitter for the amusement of locals takes it to a place where police have neither the authority nor justification to go.  These are not “guilty” people until they concede their guilt or a judge finds them so.  Yet, the cops summarily punish them by online shaming.

Does this sound slightly hypocritical coming from someone who has, on occasion, named and shamed someone for dubious conduct?  There is one critical distinction that distinguishes the two.  When individuals, non-governmental entities if you will, identify and discuss the conduct, the ideas, the inappropriateness of another individual, it is a battle of relative equals.  One guy calls out another guy for something he’s done or not, and the other can challenge or question all he wants.  We’re just people speaking out minds.

But in Boynton Beach, it’s not “just people,” but individuals wearing the shield and authority given them by government to act in the name of government. This is not a difference without a distinction, but a huge distinction.  A cop has no power to be judge, jury and executioner, whether on the street using force or on twitter using images to broadcast and humiliate people who have yet to be given due process. 

The law provides for the scope of authority of a police officer.  They can issue a summons. They can arrest a perpetrator.  No law authorizes them to take a picture and shame the speeder on twitter.  Not even if they’re social media savvy. Not even if the department is cutting edge. Not even if some locals (the ones who haven’t yet been caught speeding) think it’s great that they’ve shamed someone else.

To the extent that shaming is a good idea as an alternative punishment, being perhaps more effective as a deterrent than jailing or fining, and more palatable to the guilty person than the alternatives, it is up to a judge to determine whether to impose an alternative punishment, provided the court has the authority to do so.  People are punished after they’re convicted, not as quickly as a cop can press the share button on his cellphone.

Granted, technology has altered people’s perception of time, creating a sense of immediacy and an expectation that they are due everything they want upon demand.  They want the cops to do their job and stop the speeders, but they want to know it’s happening in real time.  So Boynton Beach residents applaud the twitter feed, appreciating that their cops are doing as they want at the expense of the miscreants stopped and shamed.  Aside from the handful of people embarrassed by the twits, there is no one to complain about the wrongfulness of this tactic, and there are taxpayers telling the police what a great job they are doing.

But given the ease and pervasiveness of social media sharing, and the amusement it brings to people who feel entitled to know every embarrassing detail of other people’s lives, this is a problem destined to get worse as the local feedback gets better.  The bottom line is it is not the job of law enforcement to impose immediate shame on those it stops, tickets, arrests. If an offense has happened, the only lawful and responsible action is to bring it to court. They have no authority to put it on twitter.

And for those locals who enjoy some great humiliation on their twitter feed, they can always find a hashtag for a social media marketers’ conference. There’s never any shortage of lulz to be had there, at the expense of people who desire to make fools of themselves on twitter.