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Force Modifications In The Era Of Cameraphones And Youtube By Gregory Roy Brown

784 Words4 Pages

The world of policing has developed into an entirely new universe through the present generation’s idea of an everyday essential: social media. Social media has given social justice movements a more powerful and widespread platform. From everyday police interactions to use of force discrepancies the online realm follows close behind our front-line officers. This increased visibility has brought forth movements against police brutality which can be a path for positive development or a vehicle for the destruction of trust. The article The Blue Line on Thin Ice: Police Use of Force Modifications in the Era of Cameraphones and YouTube by Gregory Roy Brown explores how social media has directly impacted policing. Social media has made errors in …show more content…

Starting on the path of positive development, increased visibility of police officer’s conduct allows for them to not only be held accountable for any misconduct, but realize that potential is there and thus, change their actions accordingly. The prevalence of camera phones allows the public to become “citizen journalists” and record events happening around them, while uploading these recordings on social media, allows a vaster public eye to discuss (and form opinions on) the situation from a secondary view (Brown, 2016, p.293). These online discussions which then form movements, petitions and hashtags do not go unnoticed by officers. Instead, they have a significant impact on how they conduct themselves during risky situations with offenders. In, The Blue Line on Thin Ice: Police Use of Force Modifications in the Era of Cameraphones and YouTube, Brown goes into an account of a Canadian “street cop” responding to a call about a problematic drunken man who had …show more content…

305). Social media posts are not always used as a means of positive reinforcement by the public. Police brutality awareness movements heavily rely on video evidence. These videos are often short clips from odd angles portraying simply one point of view. In addition to this, editing and misleading captions may cause those viewing to have a skewed perception of the event and may influence them to think the police officer is in the wrong. However, these videos contain the evidence needed to hold officers accountable and, if the force used was not excessive, the officer would be able to justify and explain their

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