Berlin (dpa / bb) – After seven years of Twitter, the Berlin police are on the verge of breaking the half-million follower mark. Police chief Barbara Slowik sees the now numerous appearances of the police on the Internet as a model for success and defends the sometimes somewhat flippant messages. In the future, tweeting should also be done more frequently in several languages, Slowik told the German Press Agency.
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Two recent police tweet examples: “No, these are not binoculars that our colleague uses to observe flora and fauna. This is a radar measuring device with which you can evidently measure speed offenders and observe them when braking. Yesterday from the A14 in a Pankower 30er -Zone tested. ” Or: “When a 20-year-old sits behind the wheel of a car without a driver’s license, drives several laps in a circle and the police follow him with flashing lights … At best he is sitting in a fairground carousel and at worst in a mess. Like yesterday afternoon in Hellersdorf. “
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Slowik said: “We try to address the Twitter community and not to spread things in bureaucracy jargon. It is very rare that tweets come loose from the hip. The police chief admitted:” There have also been individual cases who I found that I was a little too relaxed now. But then you discuss it. “Criticism is taken seriously.
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In general, however, the social media team works very carefully and professionally. With a total of 27,000 tweets on the two most important Twitter channels of the police, “these are only a few people who may have misappropriated stylistic devices. I can tolerate this quota”. It is clear: “We speak for the Berlin police, we want to be taken seriously and that is why we should act accordingly.”
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Slowik announced that, especially during current operations such as demonstrations, there will be more tweeting in different languages in the future. Not all of the demonstrators speak German well. “We will at least include English to provide crucial information.”
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The Berlin police started their first Twitter account in March 2014 and were at the time a pioneer among the German police authorities. More than 495,000 people follow the channel, on which the police wrote around 11,000 short messages. In the Einsatz channel with more than 400,000 subscribers, which is used for demonstrations and other special situations, 16,000 tweets ran. Every now and then there were special actions such as tweeting all emergency calls over 24 hours or, lastly, for two days, numerous current reports about the use of the focus unit in the places with a lot of crime.
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© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210201-99-249603 / 2
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