Law, order, and social media: Perceptions of police effectiveness on X/Twitter

This study examines public sentiment towards policing in England expressed in relation to a viral 13-second social media altercation on X (formerly Twitter) on 17 November 2023 involving Metropolitan Police officers in Kingston upon Thames, London. A dataset of 5416 interactions was extracted via NodeXL and analysed for group clustering, sentiment categorisation, and emotional lexicon mapping. Sentiment analysis revealed an overwhelming prevalence of negative sentiment, with anger and disgust as the most frequently expressed emotions. Emoji analysis reinforced these sentiments, with laughter (, ) and sarcasm (, ) used to mock the police, while terms such as ‘wet wipes’ and ‘chocolate teapot’ were used to describe their perceived ineffectiveness. We argue that this discourse presents a challenge to police attempts to manage their image and has the potential to undermine public perceptions of police legitimacy more generally. At present much of the debate about police legitimacy focuses on issues of procedural justice and moral alignment; however, we argue that the perception of police ineffectiveness is an equally significant challenge. Through an analysis of a viral police altercation in London, we demonstrate how digital discourse frames the police as ineffective, weak, and lacking authority. The case study highlights how social media facilitates real-time scrutiny of police actions, amplifying debates about systemic failures in policing, gendered stereotypes about law enforcement, and broader concerns about social order in modern Britain. This demonstrates the considerable challenge of police image work in digital society, and we argue that, at the moment, the Metropolitan Police are failing the ‘social media test’.