Challenges of Social Media
for Pakistan Police:
Implications and Way
Forward
Use
of social networking sites by people of Pakistan especially its youth has grown
exponentially in recent years, being part of global trend. The development has
thrown several challenges to the Pakistan Police that needs to appreciate its
implications in predicting, preventing, detecting and investigating crimes for maintenance
of law and order. By integrating social medial
strategies in its methodology,
Police can leverage upon
the opportunities offered
by social media
apart from tackling the
challenges it poses.
Monitoring of social media content has become necessary in the backdrop
of its misuse in certain recent incidents in Pakistan like the rape of a young
girl in Faisalabad or mob attacks on Christian community after exchange of
messages in Gujranwala city. Police hierarchies
in several countries
have already adopted a
comprehensive and integrated
approach to use
social media for
their advantage and Pakistan
Police can ill
afford to ignore
this powerful media.
Computers,
worldwide web (WWW) and I-phone have changed the way we collaborate, interact
and share information with each other. The online interaction is not bound by
the geographical limitations and is entirely in virtual world. Internet abounds
with sites that offer facilities for interaction, uploading information, pictures
and videos for sharing. Children and younger generation have been quick
to adopt this technology. There are several implications of this socio-technological
change for law enforcement organizations.
The broad adoption of social media by the public and the increasing
effect that this adaptation has in police work requires police organizations to
define and implement strategies for social media. This paper examines the
implications of social media revolution for the law enforcement agencies in Pakistan.
It further discusses the strategy to deal with the challenges it poses.
Social Media is
a term used
to describe a
variety of web-based applications and mobile platforms
through which users can generate and share
digital contents. The digital
contents could be
in various forms such
as text, picture,
audio, video, location
etc. International Association of
Chiefs of Police (IACP) defines Social Media as a category of Internet-based resources
that integrate user generated content and user participation. Another definition
of social network sites is as web-based
services that allow
individuals to
· Construct a public or
semi-public profile within a bounded system
· Articulate a list of
other users with whom they share a connection
· View and
traverse their list
of connections and
those made by others within
the system
The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from
site to site. Some of the popular social media sites are social
networking sites (Facebook, MySpace), micro-blogging sites (Twitter, Nixle),
photo- and video-sharing sites (Flickr, YouTube), wikis (Wikipedia), blogs, and
news sites (Digg, Reddit).
Social networking services have become highly popular among the children
and youth all over the world. They not only allow individuals to meet
strangers, but also enable users to articulate and make visible their social networks.
They offer unique opportunities in terms of extent, spread, reach,
accessibility, immediacy and permanence. Various social media sites have
emerged over the years as shown in Table.
Facebook, which
started in 2004,
has emerged as
the largest social networking site
with more than
1.49 billion users
in the world.
If it was a nation, it would be the third largest. There are more than
900 million unique visits to YouTube every month. There are more than 645
million active registered users on twitter.
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network has more than
250 million users. Google has more than 540 million Google + users.
There are reports that efforts are
being made by Baloch separatists to network and revive
militancy using social
media. While Blackberry Messenger
(BBM) played an alarming role in the spread of series of riots in London in
August 2011, at the same time Twitter was used to mobilize community clean-up
operations . In December 2012,
during the demonstrations related
to gang rape case in Faisalabad, protestors and journalists used social
media in an unprecedented
way. The event also witnessed
flash mob mobilization using social
media. Police realized
its shortcomings in analyzing
and generating pre-emptive
actionable intelligence from the
rapid online postings
as the protests
were escalating. Circulation of
an old fake video and rumors about the violence through social media contributed
to the fueling of riots. A large number of fake social media accounts of
famous personalities, including that of President of Pakistan, have also been
bothering the law enforcement agencies. Notwithstanding the
challenges, the unique
characteristics of this media
also offer several
opportunities to law
enforcement agencies. If used
judiciously, these can be leveraged
to harness the
power of information technology
through them. They
are highly suitable for
police to instantaneously connect
with the public.
They can be used for updating police activities, issue
press releases, traffic alerts about congestion, special events, diversions,
road conditions, crime prevention
advisories, dispel rumors,
tracing suspects and
missing persons, emergency notification,
community policing, etc.
They can also be useful in identification of criminals, their activities
and locations. The digital evidences of cyber crimes or traditional crimes, internal Facebook-like
social networks. A
secured social networking platform can be used internally by
the law enforcement departments to efficiently connect with its own officers
for professional information sharing,
human resource management
and better bonding,
as has been done by Toronto
Police Service. In Australia, New South Wales Police have
added ‘Project Eyewatch’
to their social
media strategy under which police
work together with their local communities to find solutions to local issues.
Law enforcement agencies
can afford to
ignore social media
but only to its
peril. If monitored
effectively, social networking
sites can provide resourceful,
economical and effective tactical and actionable intelligence. Social
networking sites are now one of the most fertile sources of criminal evidence.
Social media monitoring and analysis has been in use by business organizations
to find the market trends, sentiments, likes and dislikes of customers.
Law enforcement agencies
can also use
social networks as
a source of information, pattern
and event recognition, analyzing public mood and trend. Researches have shown
that social media can be utilized to forecast future outcomes. Real time
monitoring and analysis of social media can be very useful in unrest
anticipation and predicting snap demonstrations. Monitoring social media will
also enable police to identify provocative and objectionable contents so that
they can be blocked under provisions of laws. Although law enforcement agencies
have been late to realize the opportunities offered by social networking sites, several
police organizations have
started working in this
direction. In 2012,
Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) had floated a ‘Request for Information’ to
explore solutions for automated search/monitoring of
social media, generation
of real-time alerts
and actionable information,
based on select
parameters/Keywords . In Pakistan,
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has set
up social media
monitoring lab under NR3C (National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes). Quetta Police is also contemplating such a cell and has
floated ·expression of interest for implementation of
“Open Source Intelligence
(OSINT)” solution. A number of
free and paid tools and services are available in the market for monitoring
social media. Some of them are Social Mention, Social Snapshots, Twitalyzer,
Social Flow, Radarly, Twazzup, Addict-o-matic, Cyber
Alert, hootsuite, Accurint, Geofeedia,
Trendsmap, Buzzient and
Twitter Investigator, XI Social
Discovery, Radian, TweetDeck,
BlueJay etc. There are software
tools for social network analysis for mapping and measuring the links of
people/groups on social networks. The approach, functions, coverage, extent,
analysis etc. of these tools differ considerably. Since
most of them have been developed for business community, they only
partially meet the
law enforcement requirements.
Studies by Human Digital shows that the social media monitoring tools,
available in the market, have limited abilities to effectively deal with both
scale and speed in
unison to provide
actionable intelligence. A single tool is not able to cater to the
wide need of law enforcement agencies and a specifically developed
solution is required. Social media in current times has become a widespread presence
that touches the lives of countless people, including law enforcement officers.
Certain risks and rewards face officers, as well as their departments, who use
social media. Missteps in its use can endanger the safety of officers and
compromise criminal cases, resulting not only in embarrassment to departments
but exposure to civil and criminal liability. Law enforcement administrators must establish appropriate controls
over the use of social media to increase its benefits for their departments and
reduce incidents of misuse by officers. This can be accomplished by setting
criteria for social media use and training personnel on these policies. In
doing so, the potential of social media as a law enforcement tool that can help
departments’ better serve the public may fully be realized. Also,
Police can learn some tips and tricks about social media from the corporate
sector because businesses have already encountered some of the same challenges
in this new environment that police departments are now facing. However, police
departments are not corporations, businesses nor even run-of-the-mill
government agencies; they have unique powers, unique responsibilities and a
unique relationship to the public. Police need their own models, their own best
practices, and their own discussions and philosophies about how to incorporate
social media to achieve their distinct purposes.
This is especially true because the police may have
distinct and natural advantages in this area, and the imperatives of social
media coincide in important respects with the perennial imperatives of law
enforcement. Social media are a means of communication, which is to be found at
the center of policing. Social media also draws upon communities and can help
to build them; using social media is thus a way for police departments to take
community policing into the networked age of Web 2.0. The promise of social
media for policing is not to transform or add to the work of law enforcement
but to emphasize the deep connection with the community that has always been
the focus of good police work. Among the central tenets recognized by social
media practitioners is that “to speak with a human voice, companies must share
the concerns of their communities … but first, they must belong to a
community.” That is a familiar, even basic idea in law enforcement; it
echoes Lord Peel’s enduring principle that “the police are the public and the
public are the police.” More than 2,800 law enforcement agencies in the U.S.
have social media accounts, and all the Provincial Police set-ups in Pakistan
have their presence in the internet. But still lot of spade work in terms in
infrastructure, policies, rules and laws needs to be completed soon.
