It's the algorithm, stupid
chaos incentivized
The war on police officers is not limited to the street. It is not just traffic stops on dark roads and domestic violence calls in awful neighborhoods.
The real war is a war of ideas, of competing perceptions, of combatting lies. The trenches are comment sections.
Not only do police officers/supporters have to fend off anti-police activists, dishonest critics, and race-baiting money-hungry attorneys - the entire profession of policing has to contend with a system that is designed to multiply the chaos and minimize both the heroic and mundane.
I recently participated in a social experiment. Well, more like I fell into an unintentional, unscientific, observation.
I recently covered two stories on my Tik Tok channel that involved police officers and dogs.
Story 1 was the horrific case in Sturgeon, Missouri where a police officer shot and killed a 13 pound Shih Tzu that was blind and deaf. The was unnecessary as the tiny dog was not a threat and it appeared that the officer shot the dog because he was too lazy to keep walking after it. This officer was acting like the Kristi Noem of dogcatchers.
Story 2 was a case in New York City where an officer rescued and saved a 1 year old mini-poodle that had been been thrown off a ledge by her owner.
Views
I posted an initial video on Story 1 (Sturgeon) and the video got 1.6 million views. The next day I posted a follow up and the video got 460k views. The third day I posted another video on the case and it reached 70k views.
This was an important story, it needed to be covered, and I am glad that my videos were widely viewed.
Then on day 4 I posted Story 2 (NYPD). This was a nice contrast to the first story and demonstrated an officer doing a fantastic job saving the life of a dog. However, that video got 400 views. Not 400 thousand. Just 400.
Analysis
The officer in Missouri is just as relevant as the officer in New York. Both are single examples of police officers dealing with dogs.
On their own - these instances say very little about the other 799,998 law enforcement officers in the United States. But, one case has a huge reach on social media, has garnered protests, the resignation of a mayor, and spurred a change.org petition with 45,000 signatures - with the goal of prosecuting the officer.
On the other side - there is no such commendation for the NYPD officer.
The Incentive
The algorithm on social media is designed to incentivize chaos. There is financial gain and social media clout at the end of creating viral content. Any social media creator would be crazy to choose to cover more stories like NYPD and less like Sturgeon.
I will continue to cover both types of stories and since the vast majority of police incidents are within the law - the vast majority of my articles and videos will track that reality.
It is easy to uncover dishonesty in a social media channel/content creator. When the vast majority of stories highlight the 1% instead of the 99% - the decision has been made to favor clout and money over objective reality. And viewers who crave division and chaos - will have ample opportunity to find it.
Therefore, if you find a creator that you think is honest - please like and share their work. Here are a few of my favorites: On Being a Police Officer, Failure to Stop, Com Center, 2 Cops 1 Donut,
, , Thoughts of a Patrol Officer, Dexter Pitts, and others that I have shared throughout the years.Final Thoughts
There is massive reaction over the officer in Sturgeon because that type of behavior by a police officer is so f*cking rare. That is a good thing. This rarely happens. In my 20 years working in and studying American policing - I cannot ever remember this ever happening.
However, anti-police activists will make it their mission to pretend that this is commonplace amongst police officers. I have received more DMs from police officers denouncing this cop than I ever do over questionable police shootings.
Our job is to remind the objective public of the truth:
This is 1 officer out of 800k.
This is 1 call for service out of tens of millions this year.
Honored! Thank you DC! I think you will like The Recovering LEO too.
Daniel, this is one of your finest pieces ever. You managed to succinctly and with tangible examples explain and illustrate everything that is wrong with the presentation and consumption of information when it comes to LE. There is no effort to be accurate and the information people consume only feeds their preconceived beliefs. And their clicks only further fuel the misinformation. This is the actual war on cops. Thank you for including my podcast "On Being a Police Officer" in your roundup. We all are trying as hard as we can to help. Abby