Accusation of clickbait
Berlin police warn of burglaries with acid – and thus make Twitter users angry
© Screenshot/Police Berlin
Not every well-intentioned warning is received in this way. The Berlin police just had to learn that.
Because burglars in Berlin are increasingly using acid to open doors, the police have issued a press release warning of the risk of injury. The authorities must therefore now be accused of Twitter. They had ignored a golden rule of social media.
The warning was very specific: in the meantime, burglars in the capital have used nitric acid in 31 cases to burn door cylinders and thus gain access to the apartments. For the occupants, this is significantly worse than just breaking open the door: the acid, composed of nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen, is highly corrosive and can also form toxic fumes. The instruction to the burglary victims is correspondingly clear: “Under no circumstances touch the liquid yourself! Even gloves do not provide sufficient protection against the highly corrosive and respiratory tract irritant substance,” warns the police.
Accusation: clickbait
But in the social networks, the police have caused a headwind. The problem: The information above all comes from a police report. Twitter, on the other hand, remained much more unclear. “If you notice this green or similar-looking liquid on your apartment or front door in connection with a burglary: call #110,” it says. “Do not touch the liquid, even with gloves.” There was also a picture of the acid and a link to the police report.
Such a teaser of the danger without a concrete explanation did not go down well with the users. “Why the hell don’t you just write that burglars use nitric acid to decompose the locks, which is highly corrosive and should be neutralized with water and bases, such as caustic soda,” complains user “Julius Fisch”. And also explains his anger: “90 percent of users only read the tweet but do not click on the link.”
Other users hit the same note. “Maybe announcing WHAT it is,” complains “GuntraTojiru”. “The tweet is clickbait,” summarizes “Zarin Katharina” simply in a retweet.
breach of etiquette
The term clickbait includes posts in social networks that are intended to give users a strong incentive to click on the linked website. From 2014, portals like “Heft” were enormously successful. The stories are often massively oversold, important information is only touched upon or a false impression is given as to what the linked texts are actually about. No wonder, then, that after a boom in the practice, most news media soon distanced themselves from it. Also because the users rightly protested. In the meantime, even Facebook and Twitter are punishing such posts.
It seems unlikely that the police of all people wanted to practice clickbait. Presumably the supervisors of the social media channel just wanted to get the warning about Twitter’s character limit. Next time they should be a little more careful – after all, the post shows how little users think of it now.
Source:Twitter, police report