During the ongoing anti-terror lockdown in Brussels, police have been asking for ‘radio silence’ from the press and social media, to help their operations. Twitter users in the city haven’t stopped tweeting: they’re just using cats instead of real information
The Netherlands police tweeted “For security, please respect the radio silence on social media regarding the police operations in Brussels”. Presumably, they’re worried that people posting news and pictures of raids in progress could tip suspects off to police movements.
Dealing with technology during terrorist attacks has always been a problem. In some cases, like London during the 7/7 bombings, cell service was shut down. It’s not feasible for the police to ‘shut down’ Twitter in this case, but it seems that the polite request worked as planned.
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