We Call On Chief Michele Miuccio To Follow The Lead Of All Other Local Police Departments. Stop Requiring Social Media Accounts To See Police Information.
If Facebook Was A Neighborhood, Police Would Set Up Substation. Why Is The Department Forcing Visits To That Neighborhood?
BY: ANDREW COLTON | Editor and Publisher
BOCA RATON, FL (BocaNewsNow.com) (Copyright © 2021 MetroDesk Media, LLC) [EDITORIAL] — Facebook, as is often the case, is again under fire for promoting violence, distrust, controversy and factual inaccuracies — all of the things law enforcement is supposed to be against.
So it continues to be troubling that the Boca Raton Police Department, for all of the good things that it does, continues to use the platform as its primary platform for information dissemination. To put it another way: if Facebook was a neighborhood, the Boca Raton Police Department might set up a substation to cut down on crime — not promote it as a place that everyone should visit.
What’s the problem? Simple. If citizens, or the media, want information from Boca PD, readers need to be subjected to Facebook’s policies, procedures, and advertisers to get that information. It is highly questionable under Florida Statute 119 whether that’s even legal. Want similar information from Boynton Beach? The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office? The Broward County Sheriff’s Office? Delray Beach Police? The United States Department of Justice? State Attorney Dave Aronberg’s Office? Even the United States Coast Guard? Anyone can sign up for email lists. Boynton, PBSO, BSO, Delray Beach, USDOJ, the FBI, the Coast Guard and the State Attorney send press releases by email to anyone who wants them — the advisories often arrive daily, if not hourly.
Those police and law enforcement agencies provide information to the public, direct from the source. No need to wade through photos of dogs eating cupcakes or kids wearing political shirts. And admittedly, no need to wade through the news media, either.
But not Boca Raton PD. Want to know what’s going on? You need to sign up for Facebook or Twitter, and be subjected to those platform’s data retention and monitoring policies — something Florida Statute 119 does not call for. While the City of Boca Raton does offer a service called “Nixle” that provides texts or emails, it is rarely used, and usually only for traffic incidents.
The Boca Raton Police Department is better than this. We call on Chief Michelle Miuccio to join Boynton Beach Police, Delray Beach Police, The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, The Broward County Sheriff’s Office, David Aronberg’s Office, the FBI, the U.S. Coast Guard, the United States Department of Justice, and others in creating an email list to be used for each and every police event of interest in the City of Boca Raton. If it’s posted to social media, it should also be available to the public without needing a login, password, or a requirement to view advertising.
While we don’t often agree with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, we do when he suggests that social media platforms have too much power and are too controlling when it comes to message dissemination. No Florida citizen should be subjected to those social media platforms — or their policies — to find out what their local police departments are doing.
While we don’t often agree with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, we do when he suggests that social media platforms have too much power and are too controlling when it comes to message dissemination. No Florida citizen should be subjected to those social media platforms — or their policies — to find out what their local police departments are doing.
Readers: let us know what you think. Share your thoughts using the form below. We remind our readers that IP addresses may be logged, and threats or illegal content will be referred to law enforcement (which may or may not post it to Facebook).
