Surrey Police Service to block ‘inappropriate’ comments from its social media pages

The Surrey Police Service (SPS) says disrespectful comments and dialogue will not be allowed on its social media channels, announcing a new policy it hopes will help tackle abusive comments.

The new department, which is in the process of transitioning into Surrey’s new municipal force, unveiled on Wednesday its new Social Media Terms of Use in what it describes as an effort to limit hateful rhetoric.

“I think first and foremost, people will recognize that social media can be a mixed bag. You can end up with expressions of opinion, you can end up with cute kittens, you can end up with important information,” explained media liaison Ian MacDonald.

“But, unfortunately, there’s kind of the underside of social media, which is generally anonymous type people or people with maybe an axe to grind that will lash out and feel emboldened by some of the comments because they can say things that they wouldn’t say to individuals face to face.”

Acknowledging the controversy that has surrounded the police transition in Surrey, MacDonald says the SPS recognized the varying differences in opinion, and “for the most part, wanted to be a conduit for free speech.”

However, he says as the department started to grow and residents began familiarizing themselves with many of the people working for SPS, personal attacks began to increase.

“When officers would transfer from either the RCMP or municipal agencies, or any of the 17 organizations that currently comprise our officers, we noticed that officers with exemplary records from where they came all of a sudden were being attacked publicly and ridiculed on social media,” he told CityNews.

That gave way to internal discussions, ultimately leading to the new SPS policy. It means comments that are found to be hurtful, derogatory, and inappropriate will be removed.

MacDonald says it’s unfortunate it’s come to this, adding the department went for months posting reminders for people to be respectful and not taking any action.


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But he assures the SPS is not trying to muzzle those with differing opinions.

“Regrettably, there is just a small number of individuals who continue to throw rocks. And those rocks … aren’t just thrown at, let’s say, the media representative of the SPS,” MacDonald, who has years of experience as a media relations officer, said.

“I get that not everybody is going to agree with me and I understand that not everybody is going to like me. But when people start attacking your family, when they start attacking your children, and even when they start attacking your dog, I think that they’ve gone too far. It’s no longer a difference of political opinion … I think you have gone outside the boundaries of what most people would consider to be good taste,” he added.

The SPS has released a list containing examples of the types of content that could be deleted or lead to a user being blocked:

  • obscenities or sexual or graphic content, or vulgar language
  • content that displays a risk of physical harm or disregard for public or personal safety, may encourage unsafe or dangerous practices or acts, or may instill fear in the public
  • content that promotes or incites violence, criminal, harmful or illegal activities, bullying or physical, emotional, psychological or moral harm
  • personal attacks, or content that, gratuitously or without merit, negatively reflects on the character, integrity or reputation of an individual, demean, denigrate, shame or disparage that individual, or brings them into public contempt or ridicule, or otherwise violates Surrey Police Service’s respectful workplace policies
  • content that is cruel or insensitive, undermines human dignity or displays conduct or attitudes that offend the standards of public decency prevailing among a significant segment of the population
  • any form of personal discrimination
  • content that violates laws, including copyright or intellectual property rights
  • content that violates community standards, or is offensive to the moral standards of the community
  • content that discloses or purports to disclose personal or private information about another person, including an SPS employee or a Surrey Police Board member
  • repetitive posting of false or misleading information
  • repetitive or off topic content, or multiple posts by someone using more than one account
  • lobbying for political purposes
  • advertisements, or solicitations on behalf of businesses or not-for-profit organizations
  • content that falsely claims to represent a person or organization

The Surrey police transition has been a controversial process from the start. SPS officers are beginning to be deployed across the city this month as part of the switch away from the RCMP.

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