#AskACop - CNN has a bad day

[Fragile Bird]

CNN thought it would do a panel with five police officers who have used violent force in their job, and asked the public to submit questions to the panel using the hashtag #AskACop. They were very pleased to see it was trending across North America with more than 130,000 responses. But it may have not quite gone the way they expected.

Some of the reactions:

- did the NYPD suggest this while kind of laughing and covering their mouths? #AskACop

- DEAR ALL COPS: The jury is in.Twitter hates you.You will never be welcome here.GIVE UP & GO AWAY. #AskACop #copchat #poltwt #myNYPD #myLAPD

- When are you guys going to realize that social media is not the best way to promote people who brutalize the public? #AskACop #myNYPD

Some of the submitted questions:

- when dunkin donuts accidentally gives u a black coffee do u have the urge to shoot it too or no #AskACop

- I want to make cookies. Do I have to use a food processor to chop the nuts, or can I just shoot them 31 times with a handgun? #AskACop

- im worried about my son. i caught him growing a mustache & being racist. im worried hes becoming a cop. how can i stop it #AskACop

Do you have some questions you'd like to submit?

[SpaceChampion]

Haha. I posted the link to the hashtag on my facebook wall yesterday.

Click-bait-loving Salon.com asks if CNN was just trolling. Irony.

[Ormond]

Well, gee, the original post gives no indication of just how typical these responses were. Six out of 130,000 is minuscule.

Given the nature of those who post in such venues, plus the fact that this is the sort of thing where those who have negative feelings toward the police are probably more likely to post, I'd say that unless the number of nasty comments got above 25% it wouldn't be an indication that Americans in general are very concerned about the issue of police violence.

[Fragile Bird]

Well, gee, the original post gives no indication of just how typical these responses were. Six out of 130,000 is minuscule.

Given the nature of those who post in such venues, plus the fact that this is the sort of thing where those who have negative feelings toward the police are probably more likely to post, I'd say that unless the number of nasty comments got above 25% it wouldn't be an indication that Americans in general are very concerned about the issue of police violence.

Ormond, the stories I read say that while people did submit some serious questions, the overall response was quite negative and the campaign has backfired on CNN. I have not seen anyone purport to break down the pro and con numbers, just that the trend is negative and sarcastic, just like the reaction to the twitter campaign the NYPD tried in the summer.

[Summah]

I just opened the twitter app and looked at some #AskACop tweets and of the ones I read, a couple hundred, at most 2 or 3 of them were supportive of the police or even neutral and earnest. So way over your 25% threshold Ormond. Quite a few managed to be both critical and funny.

[Ormond]

Well, people posting on such a thread on Twitter are even less representative of Americans in general than I suspected, then.

Of course if anyone on CNN thought they'd get a representative response by doing something like this, they were crazy.

[Jace, Extat]

Well, people posting on such a thread on Twitter are even less representative of Americans in general than I suspected, then.

Of course if anyone on CNN thought they'd get a representative response by doing something like this, they were crazy.

Yeah, it's the silent majority or something, right?

I barely know what twitter is, but it seems to be pretty popular, and you can't just write it off because you apparently like cops and think everyone else should be more grateful for the guys who arbitrarily decide to do whatever the fuck they want to citizens.

[Altherion]

While some of the tweets are indeed quite amusing, this is probably somewhat counterproductive to the cause of getting the police to behave less like an occupying force in hostile territory.

[The King in Black]

Further proof that the Twitterati are the sub intelligent group thinking crowd the world perceives them to be.

[The Notorious]

Yeah, it's the silent majority or something, right?

I barely know what twitter is, but it seems to be pretty popular, and you can't just write it off because you apparently like cops and think everyone else should be more grateful for the guys who arbitrarily decide to do whatever the fuck they want to citizens.

That's not what Ormond is saying at all. Very nice cheap shot though.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

PQJ,

Yeah, it's the silent majority or something, right?

I barely know what twitter is, but it seems to be pretty popular, and you can't just write it off because you apparently like cops and think everyone else should be more grateful for the guys who arbitrarily decide to do whatever the fuck they want to citizens.

Ormond is many things: thoughtful, well considered, rare to take a slap at someone in anger or frustration. What he is not is a defender of the arbitrary injusticies visited upon the public by some police officers. Your post quoted above is made in ingnorance and attempts to besmirch Ormond unfairly.

[Relic]

Well, people posting on such a thread on Twitter are even less representative of Americans in general than I suspected, then.

Of course if anyone on CNN thought they'd get a representative response by doing something like this, they were crazy.

Wait, so first you say that unless 25% of the people posted something negative it doesn't mean anything. Then when told that it is in fact way more than 25% you go on to say it still means nothing. Hmmmm. Sounds like you have agenda here Ormond.

[The King in Black]

Look, Cops aren't being looked upon favourably now for obvious reasons. Hell ,even regularly we don't usually seem to care about much. But that doesn't mean you treat their community outreach programmes like shit, especially with the smugness these Twitter idiots are showing. At least be productive ( and no , this is not productive)

[Fragile Bird]

Look, Cops aren't being looked upon favourably now for obvious reasons. Hell ,even regularly we don't usually seem to care about much. But that doesn't mean you treat their community outreach programmes like shit, especially with the smugness these Twitter idiots are showing. At least be productive ( and no , this is not productive)

This is not a community outreach program. This is a commercial venture, CNN trying to get responses for one of their programs.

The #NYPD was a community outreach program, thoroughly rejected by citizens of New York. Back in April they tried to get New Yorkers to post feel-good pictures they've taken with or of cops. Some people did, but most people posted pictures of police brutality, like the bloodied face of an 84 year old jaywalker who got arrested.

http://gawker.com/nypds-twitter-outreach-backfires-in-most-predictable-wa-1566250806

[Elder Sister]

PQJ,

Ormond is many things: thoughtful, well considered, rare to take a slap at someone in anger or frustration. What he is not is a defender of the arbitrary injusticies visited upon the public by some police officers. Your post quoted above is made in ingnorance and attempts to besmirch Ormond unfairly.

Yes.

Ormond has a good point, actually. I think there's a huge portion of the population who supports the police. These are going to be older, white Americans, who are not using social media.

I didn't take Ormond's post as him having an agenda other than pointing out the obvious; Fox News watchers probably don't have a Twitter account. :dunno:

[Westerosi Coast Gangster]

The Fox news comments are pretty petty imo. People who have a problem with the police are significantly more likely to respond to CNN than people who support the police. I have had both good and bad experiences with cops, because, you know, they are human and make bad decisions sometimes, unlike some people on this board apparently.

[The King in Black]

Yeah ,this is a totally unbiased and objective discussion amongst grownups who are thinking clearly.

[Fragile Bird]

The Fox news comments are pretty petty imo. People who have a problem with the police are significantly more likely to respond to CNN than people who support the police. I have had both good and bad experiences with cops, because, you know, they are human and make bad decisions sometimes, unlike some people on this board apparently.

My guess is that the vast majority of white boarders [at least in North America] would say they have had both good and bad encounters with police, the bad mainly being of the parking ticket and speeding ticket varieties, with the occasional frustration of dealing with police for something like a break-in or a car accident.

My guess is that the vast majority of non-white boarders [again, at least in North America] have also had good and bad encounters, but more bad encounters than good because ever since they were young teens they've been harassed by police officers simply because of their skin colour. Those encounters do not fall under the category of "because, you know, they are human and make bad decisions sometimes", they fall under the category of systemic racism.

Many friends in RL and on this board have reported the crime of "driving while black", for example. Getting pulled over by the police for no apparent reason, except that you are a black man behind the wheel of a car. And, of course, "walking while black".

[DJDonegal]

You know what; I wrote a whole response that started off on topic, but drove straight into a ravine of "off-topic"ness about Twitter and the internet not being representative of what people think. Not because there are less people online and more young people; but because people are different online to real life.

I'm doing it again.

So I've cut this down to one line...

Some of those examples were pretty funny, but I think it went exactly the way CNN expected.

[Suttree]

PQJ,

Ormond is many things: thoughtful, well considered, rare to take a slap at someone in anger or frustration. What he is not is a defender of the arbitrary injusticies visited upon the public by some police officers. Your post quoted above is made in ingnorance and attempts to besmirch Ormond unfairly.

Still doesn't change the fact that he shifted the goal posts here as Relic rightly pointed out.