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Brief: New York City Police Department Twitter Campaign Backfires

Although a few friendly pictures were produced using a unique hashtag, the campaign was soon overtaken.

A social media campaign by New York police asking Twitter users to post pictures with police officers backfired Tuesday as images of police violence were posted in response.

In an effort to start a publicity campaign, the New York Police Department (NYPD) asked Twitter users Tuesday afternoon to send pictures of themselves with police officers using the hashtag "myNYPD."

While the request did produce a few friendly pictures of people posing with "New York's Finest," the hashtag was soon overtaken by cell phone images of police officers beating and dragging people.

By Tuesday evening, the hashtag myNYPD became a trending topic in the United States, while NYPD's official Twitter account re-tweeted only five images that came in response to its request and remained silent on the social media misdirection.

©2014 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany)