by Concern over the spread of extremist propaganda on social media has driven several British police agencies to cut back on their presence on the platform, according to a study of the force.
Though not everyone agrees with the recent course, Elon Musk, the owner of the old Twitter website, has defended X and himself as defenders of free speech and the antidote to censorship.
The British Transport Police is one of the 45 police forces in the United Kingdom that were questioned in a special Reuters article with insightful questions.
Ten forces totaling 13 million people said they were actively examining their social media presence out of the 33 police agencies who responded to their approach to X. Ten forces, on the other hand, claimed to constantly examine all social media posts on different platforms.
With six police departments limiting their production to only one or two accounts, many forces have reduced their presence on X.
By stopping its operations on X since August, North Wales Police has gone one step further. “We believed that the platform was no longer in line with our beliefs, thus we have stopped using it,” the authority, which oversees about 700,000 people, said. Additionally, Chief Constable Amanda Blakeman stated that they will keep an eye on other platforms.
Due to concerns about “the tone of the platform and whether that is the right place to reach our communities,” Gwent Police in nearby Wales announced that they were reviewing X.
Gwent has deleted all of its individual officer accounts, while another English force is evaluating if using X was still the most effective approach to interact with and foster trust in their community.
Following Southport, X’s scrutiny has increased.
Twitter was seen for over ten years as a great news source and platform for authorities and organizations to disseminate important information to communities.
The X platform’s succinct nature makes it a vital communications tool for the royal family, government agencies, and law enforcement.
Now, that image is different.
Following the murder of three young girls at a dancing class in the town of Southport, in northwest England, the role of X and other media outlets has recently been under scrutiny in the UK.
Posts on X in the early aftermath of the horrific incident fueled the notion that it was the act of an Islamist immigrant, yet a large portion of the content turned out to be malevolent, phony, and deliberate.
Riots, mostly sparked by racism, erupted for several nights in Southport and around the United Kingdom.
On his X platform, Musk declared that “civil war is inevitable.”
All of the police agencies that were interviewed denied that the summer turmoil that followed the Southport incident had anything to do with their responses. Critics of Musk’s lax stance, however, contend that hate speech and misinformation have been given free rein.
