One of the most successful cases on Twitter is that of the official profile of the National Police. With 3.8 million followers, @policia is dedicated to finding a home for Pepe, the retired German shepherd from the canine unit, or showing an image of a patrol car in some emblematic place in the country. His manager went on to write a book on the effectiveness of the body's branding strategy. Sometimes the agents introduce the user, with first-person images, in an operation. They did it yesterday and what they did not expect happened.
"Four people arrested in Madrid who allegedly hung a mannequin with Vinícius's shirt on a bridge near the Real Madrid sports complex," read the tweet. “Stop hate crimes”, added the Police. The message immediately went viral, but not exactly for the better. The operation coincided with the serious and worrying controversy of the week, the racist insults to the Brazilian soccer player, and tweeters of all colors and conditions took minutes to highlight the coincidence. Or causation.
There were reactions for all tastes. Some profiles pointed to Marlaska and to the fact that there are elections on Sunday. Others, that the arrests are made just one week of the great social debate over the racism that exists inside and outside the soccer fields. Others, that why is not persecuted in the same way as "the menas". Thousands of comments and almost five million views.
There was another set of prominent comments. They mentioned Marta del Castillo, the young woman who disappeared in 2009 whom her family is still trying to find. Her father, Antonio, also announced this Monday via tweet that he was still looking for her daughter with the help of state-of-the-art drones and thermal cameras from a specialist.
"We no longer have the police," lamented Father Courage. No one can imagine the suffering of that family and any help is little. And why doesn't the UCO investigate? they asked him. "Because the Interior won't let them," he replied. Marta del Castillo went viral yesterday for a very similar comment towards the Police profile: "And Marta's body still does not appear." There were many soccer fans behind these messages.
In social networks you have to apply filters. If society is polarized into practically two camps, on Twitter everything multiplies. For this reason, after what happened, three things must be clear: that racism is a problem, that the work of the police is immeasurable and that everything possible should be done so that the remains of Marta del Castillo appear.
