SFPD aims to curb use of social media sites by on-duty officers

San Francisco's police chief expressed growing concerns Tuesday about some officers spending time on Twitter and Facebook while on the job.

Police officers, like many others, use social media to communicate throughout the day. Now Police Chief Greg Suhr says it's time to enact some common sense rules.

In the months leading to the police move to take down the Occupy SF camp, police command would change staffing levels to get ready for a possible raid.

Suhr told KTVU that some officers unwittingly tipped off the public by sending facebook status messages or tweets.

"As we would activate officers or de-activate officers or move officers around depending on what was happening with the occupy movement, officers were actually ‘facebooking’ and tweeting to their friend and family when their hours were changed," explained Suhr.

So when the SFPD got ready to move, the department learned that a certain amount of secrecy was in order.

"We didn't tell anybody because we didn't know if it would go out on any social media," said Suhr. "It would have made the job harder."

The chief said a new social media policy will be ready in days. A more formal policy will be presented to the police commission.

Social media experts told KTVU many organizations have had to come up with policies on the fly.

"Things are moving fast and probably a lot of organizations are not aware that social media was going to have such a large impact, said Stanford social media strategist Staci Baird. So it definitely hit them by surprise."

Many local residents KTVU spoke with said the policy makes sense for the police.

"If you're trying to take somebody down that needs to be taken down, it's important to keep that stuff confidential," said Rosie Flores of Concord.

"Oh, it makes total sense, agreed San Francisco resident John Gould. There's a big difference in sharing ideas and what's going on versus what's going on in the field."

Chief Suhr said he knows social media is here to stay and wants to encourage its use and provide some guidelines.