Expert Weighs In On Social Media Impact On McKinney Officer Case
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McKINNEY (CBSDFW.COM) - When eye-brow raising video goes viral, experts say the only antidote is time: and working doubly hard to push positive information to the forefront.
"Five years ago, if I got mad about something, I could go vent to five of my friends and be over it," says Eddie Reeves, head of Reeves Strategy Group, a marketing, public relations and social media marketing company. "Now, I can vent to five million of my friends and they can spread it to five million more. That's the difference now and that's why we have to be more careful, so much more mindful, and quite frankly, so much more responsible."
The power of social media is once again on display after video of a McKinney police officer slamming a bikini-clad teenage girl to the ground was viewed millions of times within a couple of days. Police Friday night had been called to respond to a disturbance at a party at the neighborhood pool. The officer has been placed on administrative leave.
"Always act like you're on camera," advises Reeves, "because you probably are whether you see a camera or not."
It is what Reeves calls "the new normal." And armed with video, instead of turning to friends and neighbors, the world overwhelmingly now turns to social media to raise voices and concerns. And then there's the emotion.
"There's no way to not get emotional when you see videos," says Aaron Rollins. Rollins owns Mom & PopCorn company in downtown McKinney. While he says he, too, was troubled after viewing the video. As a businessman, he is also concerned about the wide reaching impact of such negative publicity directed at the city he calls home.
"The first thing I thought was 'there goes the reputation,' says Rollins. "McKinney has been known as a best place to live in America, and that video pretty much blows it."
According to Reeves, the McKinney Police Chief should be commended for moving so quickly to address the controversial video—saying when there is an information "vacuum" following a social media crisis, it will be filled and the posters will control the content—whether accurate or not.
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