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 of the canine unit, or to show the image of a patrol car in some paradigmatic place in the country. The manager even wrote a book about the effectiveness of the body brand strategy. Sometimes agents introduce the user, with first-person images, into an operation. They did it yesterday and what they didn't expect happened.
"Arrested in Madrid, four people who allegedly hung a mannequin with Vinícius' shirt on a bridge near the Real Madrid sports city," said the tweet. "Stop hate crimes", added the Police. The message went viral instantly, and not exactly for good. The operation coincided with the serious and worrying controversy of the week, the racist insults to the Brazilian footballer, and tweeters of all colors and conditions took minutes to highlight the coincidence. Or causality.
There were reactions for all tastes. Some profiles pointed towards Marlaska and that there are elections on Sunday. Others, that the arrests are made just in a week of the great social debate about the racism that exists inside and outside the football fields. Others, that why aren't "the bad guys" persecuted the same way. Thousands of comments and almost five million views.
There was another group of outstanding comments. They mentioned Marta del Castillo, the young woman who disappeared in 2009 and whose family is still trying to find her. Her father, Antonio, also announced via tweet on Monday that he was continuing to search for his daughter with the help of state-of-the-art drones and a specialist's thermal cameras.
"We no longer count on the Police", lamented the brave father. No one can imagine the suffering of this family and any help is little. And why doesn't the UCO investigate?, they asked him. "Because 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 continues to not appear". There were many footballers behind these messages.
Filters must be applied on social networks. If society is polarized in practically two sides, on Twitter everything is multiplied. Therefore, after what has 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.
