North Yorkshire Police have instructed all officers that currently use social media pages in the name of North Yorkshire Police to either delete them or change them into personal pages.
North Yorkshire Police were approached for comment, and declined to comment further than a twitter post and confirmed that they are not prepared to do interviews on it.
In a Twitter North Yorkshire Police said:
We are reducing our accounts to make it easier for our communities to find the latest updates from NYP and what is happening in their area, as well as enabling us to respond to the issues that matter to those communities more quickly and effectively.
Officers will have access to other, more closely controlled, media pages.
Tim Cook, Editor of the Harrogate Informer said:
This is a further, and very troubling move by the corporate side of North Yorkshire Police in reducing their communications with the public.
Last year they introduced measure that made working with the North Yorkshire Police comms team, all but unworkable. They opted for an approach, where they would only comment on anything if it followed a strict criteria – not commenting on this news item is an example.
Overall this looks like a further measure to distance the force from the public.
