North Bay Police Chief Scott Tod realizes that social media can be an effective communication tool, but it can also be a means to create unnecessary panic.
Back in late July social media reports surfaced indicating a man with a gun was at the Midway in Lee Park. However, the police investigated and found that those reports were not accurate.
See related: Police say reports of a gun at the midway were unfounded
That’s the challenge for the police these days.
“The Social media challenge sometimes is to distinguish between what is fact and or fiction. It's distributed on social media which we see regularly,” said Tod.
More and more neighbourhood groups are rallying together to share local criminal information through social media tools like Facebook, to help citizens combat or be aware of activity around the city.
However, Tod fears that online discussions could lead to citizens taking the law into their own hands to deal with criminals.
“The danger of that is in regards to the criminal behaviour of the mob and they themselves can, in fact, become criminals in our community,” said Tod.
“I am against the mob mentality of course as a police officer and I am against any citizen taking action on their own to harm another citizen in our community. As a police officer, I think that dialogue and discussion and requesting the services from a police service in town is the proper way to go.”