Q&A
Inclusion of council members' social media posts in the NYPD report
0:50:31
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112 sec
Council Member Williams questions the inclusion of council members' social media posts in the report on NYPD's use of social media. Commissioner Strauber explains the rationale behind this decision.
- The report included council members' posts to provide context for the social media interactions
- The investigation was not directed by the mayor's office to look into council members' social media use
- Posts were included to show the dialogue and assess both sides of the conversations fairly
Nantasha M. Williams
0:50:31
Okay.
0:50:32
Another interesting thing that I did not know because I have not yet read the report, but I'm, like, increasingly more interested to read the report.
0:50:40
You criticized several social media posts from personal accounts of a council member claiming that they inevitably intensified tension and mistrust between the department and communities, its services.
0:50:51
Why was this included in a report on the NYPD's use of social media, in your executive summary for that report?
0:50:58
You know that the mayor's office publicly requested that investigation look at council members' social media as well.
0:51:05
Did the mayor actually direct you to investigate council member's use of social media, and does your criticism of the council member have anything, to do with the mayor's request?
Jocelyn Strauber
0:51:16
So we we received no request from the mayor's office or anyone else at city hall beyond we noted the statement that was made publicly that you just referred to.
0:51:26
And that's a quote from an article, I think, that was quoting one of the mayor's public statements.
0:51:31
The reason that we reflected on the communications by the city council member and by other, by other members of the public where appropriate in the report is that these social media posts did not occur in a vacuum.
0:51:46
They were part of, at least the ones we focused on, they were part of a dialogue.
0:51:51
And there were times where we felt that both parties to the dialogue, would have done a better job had they sort of taken the tone down, you know, been more disciplined in their communications, used the social media platform as a way, you know, to have a meaningful discussion on important issues rather than to attack each other, to attack the police department, to attack the council member.
0:52:14
And so we felt to be fair in assessing these conversations, we had to assess them in context, and that means looking at both sides of the conversation.
0:52:23
Yeah.
Nantasha M. Williams
0:52:23
I think it's interesting that the report, that that you reached no conclusion on whether or not the tweets made by members of NYP's executive staff on official city accounts were, quote, unquote, political activity.