Qld. Police have been warned they could face disciplinary or legal action for posting criticisms of the government or politicians on social media

Free speech?

Police have been warned they could face disciplinary or legal action for posting criticisms of the government or politicians on social media, with a new policy being sent out to officers.

The social media policy says Queensland police must not post criticisms of respective parties or policies that raise questions about the officer‘s capacity to work “professionally, effectively or impartially”.

It also bans them for posting or publishing derogatory comments about police service policies, procedures, operations and activities, as well as partner agencies.

The new policy comes after Commissioner Katarina Carroll unleashed on rogue officers making offensive social media comments about fellow officers and members of parliament, launching an investigation into “deeply concerning, nasty and defamatory” material.

In July she told officers she was investigating inappropriate content on external social media pages linked to current and former Queensland Police Service members.

One of the Facebook groups was understood to be Defend the Blue – a private group for police officers who used it to express frustrations with the government or the service hierarchy.

“Members may be subject to disciplinary and/or legal action for improper use of social media in a personal and non-work related capacity including, but not limited to, when using their own name, a version of it, a person or persons name/s which is not their own (with or without permission) and/or pseudonym/s,” the new policy says.

“A claim of anonymity may be irrelevant.”

The new policy has also told officers to put on the highest privacy settings possible on social media and warned them that messages sent in a private capacity in Messenger or WhatsApp could still result in dismissal.

It said officers could not create or manage unofficial social media police groups, pages or accounts and that personal or corporate accounts must not be used to “establish or pursue an improper relationship with any current or former victim, offender or witness”.

Bond University professor Terry Goldsworthy, a former police detective, said officers now had to be “apolitical” without engaging in any commentary.

He said the social media policy change was necessary and would “eradicate the keyboard warriors”.

“It’s risk management, they’ve been caught short with that Facebook group and now what they’ve done is put out a comprehensive policy that captures just about anything,” Mr Goldsworthy said.

“It would suggest that now if you are a police officer you wouldn’t want to be putting up any posts that has any kind of commentary or politics or government policy at all.

“I think the service had to do it, it’s all encompassing and it’s very limiting,” he said.

“The job of police is to enforce the mandate of the government which is duly elected by the people, it’s not there to offer commentary of it and if they’ve got issues or critiques they can be dealt with internally.”

https://www.couriermail.com.au/truecrimeaustralia/police-courts-qld/qld-police-warned-over-posting-criticisms-of-the-government-or-politicians-on-social-media/news-story/4bfa74106aa9a8c272b6c78a4734fea5