Commentary

Bill Bratton Creates BlueLine, Social Net for Cops

While most people can use LinkedIn, some professions pretty much require their own dedicated social networks: domains like healthcare and law enforcement are so highly specialized -- and so liability-prone -- that there’s not much a layperson can really contribute in terms of professional insight.

 

With that in mind Bill Bratton, the former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department and former commissioner of the New York Police Department, is creating a new professional social network for police called BlueLine, according to Reuters. The platform, which is being beta-tested in Southern California and will be unveiled in October, encourages police to share knowledge about new techniques and technology, best practices, crime trends, and legal and regulatory issues in a safe and secure environment.

 

BlueLine comes equipped with the full range of social media tools, including messaging, videoconferencing, user-generated databases, and photo and video-sharing. Owner Bratton Technologies hopes to monetize it with direct marketing ads for law enforcement-related products and services. Bratton emphasized that it is in no way intended as a command-and-control system or conduit for “strategic communications,” but purely as a platform for professional information-sharing.

 

Of course, police departments around the country have been using social media as a source for criminal investigations, with some spectacular results. Back in October 2012 the NYPD announced it was expanding its gang unit to 300 detectives in response to an uptick in criminal activity which the NYPD blamed, at least in part, on social media.  And in April of this year the NYPD arrested 63 alleged members of three gangs for various crimes including three murders, around three dozen shootings, and gun trafficking, after gang members boasted of their exploits on social media. According to the NYPD, the members of the Air It Out, True Money, and Whoadey gangs “talked openly on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.”
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About the Author

Erik Sass is editor of Publishers Daily. You can reach Erik at eriksass@gmail.com.