Police told to blog off

The Register today reported that the Metropolitan police are the latest organisation to 'encourage' it's staff to stop running blogs. The advice acknowledges that they cannot force officers to stop blogging, but requests that they: "consider the impact of expressing views and opinions that...bring the organisation into disrepute" which incidently makes for ironic reading on the day that Ian Blair is in the headlines for illegally recording conversations with the Attorney General.

This situation the Met have found themselves in is similar to that of a growing number of organisations trying cope with the level of conversation the web is enabling. Rather than trying to encourage officers to stop blogging altogether I would have preferred to see a clear and concise best practice for officers running personal blogs.

It's never a good policy to smother conversation, but most people are happy to moderate it to suit a purpose.

tags: conversation , blogging , metropolitan police,