Pro Tip: To get something removed from Google search try to contact the source to have the post removed from the Internet, then submit the dead 404 link to Google at this link. It is not as easy as it sounds. If you are still needing help you may need to seek out professional help. Hopefully this blog will give you some tips on how to do that.

There is professional help available to to help remove cyberbullying posts online. Thanks to the staff at Guaranteed Removals for the advice for success and safety online in this blog post

With the growth of social media’s use and popularity, there has also been a growth in reported cyber-bullying and online harassment.

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter may be the main social networks used
to keep in touch with friends, but they are also the most popular sites used for cyber-bullying

1. An estimated one in five Canadian Internet users age 15 to 29 reported having been cyber-bullied or cyber stalked. (Source: 2017 The Anti-Bullying survey)

2 . It’s just not young adults who are being victimized. Adults can also become targets, as 40% of adult Internet users in the United States reported experiencing some form of online harassment (Source: 2014 Stats Canada: Cyberbullying and cyberstalking among Internet users aged 15 to 29 in Canada)

3. It’s important to practice some safety tips when using social media platforms, including not putting too much information about yourself online. (Source) 2014 Pew Research Center report

If you encounter a cyber bully, take down their info, take screenshots of the harassment and inform the authorities.

Whatever you do, do not sink to their level. By giving into the bully and responding, it will likely only make matters worse.

Another important step in preventing cyber-bullying is to educate children. Although many adults will face cyber-bullying at some point in their life, it is important to educate the youth in these matters with hopes that they may not become future victims.

If you do think you are a victim of cyber-bullying check out these tips from Guaranteed Removals.

Guaranteed Removals is committed to helping youth change the online world for the better, by offering five scholarships to students studying in areas of law, criminology and computer science. You can apply and learn more at guaranteedremovals.com/scholarships.

This blog post was contributed by guest blogger Rachel Swiednicki at Guaranteed Removals, Canada’s largest and most successful online image management company, helping people defend and protect their image online. For more information visit GuaranteedRemovals.com.

Beware of Facebook Messenger scams. Wise to have online conversations in trusted spaces

Be aware of a Facebook Messenger scam that leads you to believe you are talking to a trusted Facebook friend, but they start talking about themselves receiving a large amount of cash that any senior or disabled person is eligible for delivered by a UPS courier service to the door. The conversation will start out casually then will lead to a message similar to this:

“I got money from the {I.F.C.} International finance corporation grant program set up by the World Bank Group with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation..”

The conversation will then evolve into you being asked:

“I think you should contact the claiming agent now on their text number before the program closed. Can i forward you where to contact the agent in charge?”

There are many scams trying to get your personal information out there. This one is particularly dangerous because you feel that you are talking to someone who is legitimately your friend on Facebook Messenger.

Online private communications is a way of life in 2018. We all take precautions to ensure our privacy. If someone is a Facebook friend with us and they send us a Facebook messenger message most people automatically think that it is the person who is friends with us sending the message. Be aware that sometimes the person is not who they say they are.

This situation recently happened to me with a trusted relative. It is very easy to be deceived. Some quick research led me to believe this was a scam and to legitimate information about the scam being posted on the Bill And Melinda inda Gates Foundation website.

What to do in a situation like this is outlined on Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation official website and is reproduced here for your information:

“If you doubt the authenticity of any type of correspondence claiming to originate from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, please email phishing@gatesfoundation.org. This alerts the foundation to the potential scam and allows for it to be investigated and remediated, if necessary.

The foundation is aware of numerous forms of fraudulent correspondence including, but not limited to: email, postal mail, fax, and telephone, all claiming to be from, or associated with, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. They are circulating in a number of different languages and often include foundation logo, photos, links, or other information taken directly from our official web site, www.gatesfoundation.org.

Unfortunately, scams claiming to be from or associated with the foundation are growing in volume and, in many cases, can be quite sophisticated. Our security team is working with law enforcement to make every effort to stop such scams, but unfortunately, we cannot stop them all.

Please be advised that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, foundation employees, grantees, or partner organizations do not:

Request administrative fees for awarding a grant. The foundation’s grant-making procedure can be found here.
Host internet lotteries or offer prizes of any kind through email, postal mail, telephone, fax, or in person
Request registration fees for conferences or summits
Request information about bank accounts or other private information
Approach individuals in person offering grant opportunities
Solicit donations at any time
Offer investment opportunities”

It is also prudent to report suspicious activities to Facebook by clicking here and to notify the person who is is being personated that their account is compromised and to change their password.

Another option is to consider taking all conversations to text message, email or app like Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp. Be sure to check out the encryption of each service. Signal is widely reported to be the most secure.

Saving & Improving Lives Needs The Proper Wording In Legislation

There is much buzz about “PTSD” (let’s call it PTSI) in the media, and now at the Canadian Federal Parliament with a vote March 8, 2017 on Private Members’ Bill C-211.

Any legislation should be all inclusive of people and of all phychological diagnosis’.

Saskatchewan seems to be the only Canadian jurisdiction to get this right. Read media report here about what Saskatchewan is doing.

All people who have advocated for and are supporting Bill C-211 should be congratulated and have acted in good faith. However, we must do this right, and do it right the first time around, not ‘get a foot in the door’.

The reality is that those who experience Post Traumatic Stress see their situation as an ‘injury’, not a ‘disorder’, so the very name of Bill C-211 as the “PTSD Bill” is offensive to many, despite being drafted with the best of intentions.

Paramedics/Ambulance, Police, Fire, Corrections, Military, Nurses, Doctors, Social Workers, and all people who provide services to help others should be included.

There are many other psychological injuries that exist (other than PTSD), and actually are far more common than PTSI. Having stated this, those who suffer from PTSI legitimately experience many challenges every day.

Any legislation should be all inclusive of all psychological injuries, not just PTSI. Major Depressive Disorder, Anxiety, Bi-Polar, Addictions and several other medical diagnoses affect all people, including first responders, public safety officers and military personnel.

As a cop who has been involved in the mental health system as both a professional and a patient, it is critical to work collaboratively, and language matters. So many of us fall through the cracks in the wording of legislation. This is improving, but we must slow the press down and get the wording absolutely right based on the best and latest reality.

Below are links to several key resources that should be read and understood by all who are advocating for, working in the mental health space, and are patients in this space. In particular, our legislators need to take note of the proper wording and be all inclusive in their approach.

I have talked to psychologists, registered psychotherapists, peer support people, advocates and politicians about this issue, and they all agree that the language must be all inclusive, yet the wording of the current Bill C-211 is not all inclusive, nor is the recent ‘presumptive legislation’ passed in Ontario.

Let’s please collaborate and get this right at the Committee stage. People’s lives will depend on getting it right.

Thanks to everyone who are working hard to achieve success. Let’s not be fooled that the language matters. Let’s just please get this right.

(October/2016) Healthy Minds, Safe Communities. The first substantial report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety & National Security. The report looks at how the government can support public safety officers through a national strategy for Occupational Stress Injuries

Tabling of PTSD/OSI Report

Watch debate in House of Commons on Bill C-211 March 6, 2017

Read Bill C-211

Read “Healthy Minds, Safe Communities” Report

Read Ontario’s Supporting Ontario’s First Responders Act (unfortunately only mentions PTSD)

Read Saskatchewan Legislation

Read Leading Experts In Treating Mental Health For First Responders Paulette Laidlaw & Kent Laidlaw

Mental Health~Resources For Improvement of Services For All ” target=”_blank”>Many resources are collected here on a twitter moment

1 minute videos are suitable for posting to Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Instagram. Posting in native format to each social media platform results in greatest target audience engagement and reach

2016 was an interesting year for how to reach a target audience with video. It is imperative for greatest audience reach to post video to social media sites in the native format for the site to ensure maximum engagement and reach.

This is being written by the same guy who has sworn by Youtube on several channels for a number of years! 2016 saw a shift in this thinking. It is still imperative to post to youtube, but for maximum reach, posting the same video in native format to a facebook page, a twitter account, and a shorter version to Instagram is a wise choice.

In addition, every post that is not a video, needs to have a picture posted with it for maximum engagement! This can’t be stressed enough.

Here are some tips and tricks:

1. If you need to ‘rip’ a youtube video for posting to other sites, a great free tool is en.savefrom.net Be sure to that you have the copyright rights to the video.

2. If you are posting a video to Instagram it must be 60 seconds or less. Good article on why Instagram changed video length from 15 seconds to 1 minute can be read in Forbes Magazine

3. To post video to Facebook Live you can either go live from a computer with a webcam or other camera, or a mobile device. Here is the Facebook guide on how to do Facebook Live. Some good tips for etiquette and style for Facebook Live are here

If you are going to use a computer with a webcam or another type of camera (webcam is easiest) you will need to use an encoder and post the stream key into the encoder for every video. The encoder that seems to work very well and is free is the Open Broadcast Project known as “OBS” To find the ‘stream key’ on your facebook page, click on ‘publishing tools’ followed on the left side of the page ‘videos’, then top right to the +live button. You will then get a Server URL and a stream key that you need to add to your OBS in the settings section. You will need to start OBS, as well as start the video in Facebook. Keep the Stream Key secret. Anyone can use them to stream video to your post. This stream key is valid for 7 days. Once you preview the video, you have up to 5 hours to go live. If you need more time, create a new stream key closer to the time.

3. If posting a pre-recorded video to Facebook, simple click on the photo button on the status update and upload a video. Be sure to title it properly and message it in the same way you would message a facebook post.

4. For twitter video the maximum length is 140 seconds (1min 20sec). You can do the videos live from your twitter, or you can upload a file from your computer or mobile device by clicking on the add photo/video button.

5. For posting photos to social media… one good photo works best. It is great to create a branded template and add several photos into one. A great free tool to use to make these images is CANVA If you are posting multiple photos, it is important to engage with the people in the photo with photo tags and a good written description of each photo that tell a story!

In conclusion, if you can make your video under 1 minute in length, you will have it in the format suitable for native format posting in Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Your reach will be significantly greater and all following your posts will view your social media skills as far superior than if sharing video across platforms!

Final tip for the road…. Posting a non-video post to social media without a photo is like using a bathroom without toilet paper! It is a job unfinished that stinks in the end!

Canva is a great free tool to make eye catching graphics for social media in proper sizes for all platforms. Also great for sizing for profile pictures and banner pictures!

For #OneBraveNight Friday May 13, 2016 Join Team One Love and Team Damoff For A Waterfalls Illumination, Hike and Campfire #SunriseSelfies to raise awareness/funds for mental health and end stigma

If you wish to attend #OneBraveNight with Team One Love and/or Team Damoff and are worried about timings and a ride, please email Scott Mills scotmills@gmail.com and arrangements can be made to pick you up at a west end GO Train station when you are able to arrive. Arrangements will also be made to get you home after sunrise. We realize not everyone can make it to all the stops on our One Brave Night but want everyone to feel included and welcome! This all started with my friend Liz Lambert posting on social media she wanted to participate in #OneBraveNight, and has now grown to reach many more people, with a number of opportunities. Our goal is to minimize stress, maximum people attending & enjoying the night, maximum social media engagement and maximum donations! Read more below to follow the planned events and hopefully participate in person or online where you can!

To donate to Team One Love click here: bit.ly/OneLoveOneBraveNight

Click here for the facebook event/map for the Sherman Falls Illumination starting at 8:45pm

Click here to sign up for all Team Damoff events

Click here for facebook event Team Damoff Does One Brave Night
What is Centre For Addiction & Mental Health CAMH One Brave Night for Mental Health?

People living with mental illness tell us nighttime is the hardest for them. It is in the darkness that they feel most alone and have the least amount of hope.

CAMH One Brave Night for Mental Health asks Canadians to bravely share one night to inspire hope for the 1 in 5 people who will experience a mental illness in their lifetime.

We challenge the country to stay up all night and fundraise in order to defeat mental illness. You can create your own all-night challenge and get together with friends and family to marathon-watch your favourite series, host a board game tournament, or go camping and stay up wishing on stars.

At dawn, participants will post their #sunriseselfies to stand in support of those living with mental illness.

Register today and then ask family, friends and colleagues to support you taking part in CAMH One Brave Night for Mental Health, the all-night challenge to defeat mental illness.

– See more from the official website by clicking on this link:

All are welcome to join Team One Love and Team Damoff at the following locations:

1. 6pm-7:30pm Dinner at The Purple Heather 3600 Dundas St W, Burlington. Click for directions

2. 8:45pm-9:45pm Waterfalls Illumination at Sherman Falls hosted by Jay Poel & Hamilton Waterfall Capitol of The World

For map to Sherman Falls click here:

3. 9:45pm-10pm – Help Jay and team carry illumination lamps to his vehicle at Sherman Falls

4. 11pm-1am Hike at Albion Falls For driving directions from Sherman Falls to Albion Falls click here

5. 2am-5:45am – Team One Love will attend bonfire with campfire songs at Bronte Creek Provincial Park (members from Team Damoff will be at the campsite from 11pm onwards if people wish to just attend at the campsite). For a map to Bronte Creek Provincial Park click here

Special thank you to Liz Lambert, Jay Poel and Katherine Finelli Vetro for all your dedication to organizing!

May nobody experiencing a mental health challenge feel alone or left behind!

Read here to see what works for your needs with Facebook and/or Youtube video

So what is the best in 2016 for video?… Youtube or Facebook? You will have to decide on your own depending on your purpose and audience. Read on for some tips and tricks on downloading, engagement examples and 360 video.

Youtube videos have been a passion of for a number of years engaging in relationships and technology strategy for success and safety. BMX, Graffiti, Crime Stoppers, SMILE Conference, Police, and whatever else that presented an opportunity for a video or a live stream has attracted my attention. Tried to count one day and realized that over 5,000 videos were in one way or another on youtube that my long list of broken cameras once had a lens on!

It all comes down to content being king. It doesn’t matter what platform you are on..if you are posting content that people want to see the people will come to where the video is posted if they want to see it!

Many people I collaborate with on social media are interested in ‘pushing’ a video. Once upon a time I was all about youtube and youtube only! Safe to say I am still all about youtube, but very much are seeing benefits on engaging video natively on Facebook.

Click here to learn how to upload a video to facebook

Click here to learn how to upload a video to youtube

If you are used to posting most of your video content on youtube and sharing on facebook and twitter, it is probably a good idea now to post the same video on youtube and on facebook natively.

You will benefit from engagement on both platforms.

If the video is on youtube and you need to download it in order to upload to facebook, simply add ss after the www. and download the video. Watch video below how to do this:

If you are required to created content that needs to be transcribed, Youtube has a great transcription service built right in that works best if a human being is doing the transcription. The auto transcript feature does not do a very great job! Click here for an official Google/Youtube step by step guide

If you need to transcribe a facebook video, there are a few services out there, most of which will cost you money. It is much easier just to post a link to the youtube video in your facebook post stating that if you want to view the transcribed version to view it on youtube.

Of note in this discussion is “360 Video”. They seen to be more easily viewed on facebook than youtube because you can put your fingers on the screen of your mobile device and move the video around. Click here to learn about what 360 video is

Try out viewing the following 360 video shot by Homeless Advocate Mark Horvath using a ‘Theta’camera on youtube and facebook and see what is best for you! Both were uploaded around the same time. Youtube views at time of writing 1600. Facebook views at time of writing 11,339.

YOUTUBE:

FACEBOOK:

In conclusion, wherever your target audience is you should post video to that site. If you don’t know where your audience is or some are on youtube and some on facebook, it is best to post the same video natively to both youtube and facebook. As far as transcribing..Youtube transcription is free, easy and works well, but don’t do it on auto pilot, have someone actually transcribe it. At this point, unless I am missing something, I would just post a link in the facebook post of the video to watch it on youtube if you want a transcribed version.

This is all written here from experiential learning, much of which comes from volunteer work ‘just doing it’ on social media. Special thanks to Mark Horvath of Invisible People, who is always taking social for good one step further!

April 8, 2016 is #DontStreamAndDrive Day

Click here to watch a cop tell a woman on Periscope #DontStreamAndDrive

The power of one using social for good is incredible in 2016. The #DontStreamAndDrive campaign hopefully will educate people and change behaviours to save lives.

Great initiative April 8, 2016 by disruptive thinker, police social media advocate and independent social media consultant known online as “The Custody Sergeant” to educate our world about the dangers of streaming/watching video on mobile devices when driving.

When I woke up this morning I had completely forgotten about the important social media campaign organized by a UK cop passionate about using social media to save lives.

A great feature of this initiative was that it was organized on Thunderclap, which allowed for the people already listening and engaging with the UK cop for success and safety to sign up to ‘donate a social media post’ in advance for the day of the initiative.

When I checked my own twitter timeline this morning I already had posted something supporting the #DontStreamAndDrive initiative, and so had a traffic savvy Toronto Police colleague @ReconGeni

Pls consider a share & pledge to never livestream & drive & never watch someone who is #DontStreamAndDrive #Fatal4 https://t.co/cIR49OvOEk

— Scott Mills (@GraffitiBMXCop) April 8, 2016

I pledge to never livestream and drive and to never watch someone who is. #DontStreamAndDrive #Fatal4 https://t.co/yKro89q15E

— Eugenia Ambrozaitis (@ReconGeni) April 8, 2016

With the help of a retweet of my tweet on the @TorontoPolice twitter account, by day’s end almost 5,000 impressions had accumulated on my tweet alone.

For all the details about the social media campaign initiated on Thunderstruck, check out the blog on the organizing cop’s pinned tweet:

Please support #DontStreamAndDrive Day. Read blog and sign up to thunderclap https://t.co/rP84udFYva pic.twitter.com/3lXYJSoof2

— TCS (@SgtTCS) February 21, 2016

Watch and/or join the blab here:

Some key points from an observer:

1. It is essential to plan out social media campaigns in advance.

2. The concept of talk to the people already listening and your influence will grow is imperative.

Highly suggest watching the quiet words of Liz Strauss on using social for good below.

In the end, one UK cop managed to get 509 people to sign up to help promote the day on Thunderclap. His goal was 250. The total reach on social was 2,485,344. This does not count the many conversations that were started in real life, and hopefully will be carried on every day!

.. and in a final summary by the organizer… over 20,000 million reached on twitter!

The last 24hrs of #dontstreamanddrive hashtag. Potential reach just shy of 20million. @GraffitiBMXCop pic.twitter.com/Cu9GORbuvW

— TCS (@SgtTCS) April 8, 2016

Congrats Neil on a successful campaign!

International Women’s Day 2016 was celebrated in fine style on February 29, 2016 as Angel Freedman Directed/Produced Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” at the Flato Markham Theatre

Amazing celebration of International Women’s Day 2016 occurred at the Flato Markham Theatre Monday February 29, 2016.

Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues was presented, directed/produced by tireless community social justice advocate Angel Freedman.

A few photos are posted here and can be used/shared by anyone (no permission required)

Watch the performance on archived Youtube Live here:

Social alchemy is transforming something bad into something good. People who facilitate social alchemy are referred to as alchemists. Aurora, Ontario Post Traumatic Stress advocate Kate Gille has become an alchemist, and she may not even know it! The goal of this blog post is to educate others to engage in the concept of social alchemy, especially on social media where so much negativity can happen. Let’s take it to a positive in person dialogue. “Together we are stronger”.

The Future : The Past for @GraffitiBMXCop @TorontoPolice pic.twitter.com/PYkCSjRRNz

— Kate Gillie (@KateGillieART) August 21, 2015

The concept of social alchemy first came to my attention in 2009 during a presentation at Humber College Lakeshore Campus in Professor Arthur Lockhart’s Criminal Justice Studies class that I was doing with graffiti artist Jessey Pacho. It was pointed out by Professor Lockhart that both Jessey and I were practicing alchemists and we didn’t even know it! Since that time, the concept of social alchemy is something I have tried to incorporate consciously into my daily work life managing Toronto Police Service social media accounts.

Watch the Art’s explanation of social alchemy here:

As the Toronto Police Service Social Media Officer, my daily job involves a lot of negative social media posts. Sometimes there is an opportunity to engage in a dialogue and have a respectful conversation that leads to good things happening. Don’t get me wrong, many negative situations have little hope for positivity, but with a little effort and some dialogue online, often positive relationships form that further our shared goals of community success and safety.

My favourite example of social alchemy was meeting the late Amber O’Hara, who started out posting on Toronto Crime Stoppers facebook page that the “cops suck” and nobody was getting back to her information being sent in to help solve her cousin Carolyn Connelly’s murder. Not only was Amber compromising her anonymity on a Crime Stoppers social media site, she was breaching the terms of use of the facebook page with very inappropriate language. Her post was removed, and I reached out to Amber explaining how Crime Stoppers works and introducing her to then Toronto Police Homicide Squad Detectives Michael Barsky and Peter Code who were leading the investigation. Turned out Amber didn’t care about anonymity, and positive relations resulted between Amber, the Toronto Police and Crime Stoppers until she died. At her funeral, Amber had arranged for cards to be distributed to attendees urging anyone with information on Carolyn’s murder to contact Officers Mike Barsky or Peter Code.

Watch the results of “social alchemy” (cop engaging on social media with a critic) with Missing And Murdered Aboriginal Women advocate Amber O’Hara talking with the late Past President of Crime Stoppers International Gary Murphy here:

The most recent example of social alchemy in social media that turned into a real life meeting for the good occurred Friday August 21, 2015 when citizen Kate Gille retired York Regional Police Staff Sergeant Brad McKay and I met in person at Toronto Police Headquarters after a lengthy online discussion on twitter about “Post Traumatic Stress”… NOT “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” as I learned from our conversation.

Instead of discussing back and forth on twitter and going nowhere fast with the conversation we ended up meeting, connecting with other members of my team, a friend of Kate’s … and Kate was generous enough to paint me a painting that symbolizes for her how Post Traumatic Stress issues are currently dealt with by police services, and where she feels she can contribute to help make the situation better for all involved. We were able to share some of our motivation for our shared passion to advocate to help people experiencing mental health issues, and no doubt we will be in touch to collaborate in the future.

So.. why am I writing this blog post you may ask! … Well, Kate told me that a number of my tweets were being silently listened to by many people she was in contact with who are experiencing mental health issues, and my ‘dialogue’ with people on twitter that generally would not be challenged due to their ranks being at the Chief level and my rank being a Constable level were particularly impactful on police officers she knows who are afraid to come forward to get help for mental health issues they are experiencing. To hear this truly made me feel good!

During a conversation between my supervisor, Meaghan Gray, and Kate during her visit, I heard from Kate that my engagement on social media had made a difference for her, and many others. I am particularly grateful to have the freedom of speech from my supervisors to engage in social media in the spirit of social alchemy. I hear of situations daily of people in all types of organizations not being able to speak openly and professionally about things that matter to them. I truly believe this attitude of control needs to change, and a decentralized social media strategy with purpose and process with the goals of success and safety needs to be implemented for all organizations.

Thanks for reading my ‘rant’. More importantly, thanks to Kate for caring, reaching out and for making a difference. I sincerely hope that we can bring other key people together as a result of this initial meeting, because “Together We Are Stronger”.

A negative twitter dialogue turned into a face to face meeting for good between citizen Kate Gille @KateGillieART, Brad McKay @228Brad and cop Scott Mills @GraffitiBMXCop August 21, 2015 at Toronto Police Headquarters on the topic of mental health

Story by Ganka Nagarajah
Youth In Policing Summer Student Toronto Police Service Corporate Communications
Constable Scott Mills, Toronto Police Service Social Media Officer

Mural in progress at 76 Church St Toronto.. To be continued! To follow progress check website EmbassyOfImagination.com

Follow progress of mural at 76 Church St, Toronto EmbassyOfImagination.com and Instagram.com/ThePASystem

Teen Artists from Cape Dorset Nunavut have teamed up with Toronto Graffiti Artists for a great mural at 76 Church St, Toronto. Follow the progress online at EmbassyOfImagination.com

Periscope is all the rage in video in 2015. We decided to do some tests on an official Toronto Police Periscope account in the Toronto Police Service Corporate Communications office on Tuesday July 7, 2015 during an orientation to social media training session with our Youth In Policing Initiative student.

Our first test was with social media specialist Rob Cairns as he visited our office briefly. He was talking to us about Instagram photos now being high definition, so we tried a periscope video.. and it worked! We had 24 live viewers and within 2 minutes 54 people had checked out the archived video!

Concerns were that we would not be AODA compliant, as the standards for video for close captioning state that captions must be added as soon as not live.

We tweeted with Twitter Canada and started the conversation. Always learning in social media!

@sladurantaye Playing around with @periscopeco & getting a LOT of views fast. Is there way to do captions to make the videos AODA compliant?

— Scott Mills (@GraffitiBMXCop) July 7, 2015

There was a new mural being done at 76 Church Street in Toronto. My supervisor is Constable Scott Mills and his twitter handle is “Graffiti BMX Cop”. He told me that he had learned a lot about social media doing youth engagement projects through graffiti art. We decided to go down to where the mural was at and try to interview some of the artists.

It started to rain! We got there and the artists had left for the day due to the weather.

Step in periscope! We tried a video and for the first time a periscope video was tweeted directly live on the Toronto Police twitter account! Officers Wendy Drummond, Chris Boddy and Craig Brister have been experimenting with periscope previously. We are definitely in the learning phase and the only way to learn is to try it!

Periscope video test on @TorontoPolice account July 7, 2015

Our video cut out after 7 seconds on Periscope, but we had set the Periscope app setting to record the video we did onto the phone we were using – A Samsung Galaxy Mega.

We tweeted the video and tagged one of the mural facilitators, Lisa Martin of Well And Good, who Officer Mills had had contact with previously. See tweet below.

LIVE on #Periscope: Art Mural 76 Church St Practice Periscope #Yipi @LisaMartin https://t.co/n3CYqSskTh

— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) July 7, 2015

We got back to the office and tried the best way to upload the whole video resulting in us uploading the video directly to Officer Mills’ Youtube account from his phone

Watch it here.

Take aways from our test on Periscope:

1. A lot of viewers watch fast (Thanks to Aaron Adel for the tips and tricks!)
2. There seems to be a glitch in the video stopping without you knowing it. (This also happened during a Pan Am Games test by Officer Craig Brister)

Press event with @TorontoPolice @OPP_GTATraffic @YRPDutyOffice starting to talk #TO2015 traffic safety. #HOV @PC7634 will be @periscopetv

— TPS Pan Am 2015 Info (@TPSPanAm2015) June 30, 2015

3. You can choose to download a copy of the video onto your device if you choose that option in settings.

There is a setting that is ‘off’ on Periscope that allows you to archive a copy of the video you are taking on your device. Recommended to have this ‘on’ in the event there is an Internet connectivity or other technical glitch

4. You can just use Periscope and not tweet it and it stays on Periscope for 24hrs (like we did with Rob’s video). If you don’t like the video you can immediately delete it.

Take aways of the mural”

1. Mural is AWESOME. Follow the progress and support the artists at EmbassyOfImagination.com

First day!!! cape Dorset x Toronto #embassyofimagination #overheating

A photo posted by @thepasystem on Jul 4, 2015 at 10:26am PDT

2. We talked to two local citizens who really admired the art and loved the fact that it was being done in the neighbourhood
3. We are definitely going to follow this project! To learn more about the history of the mural watch:

Read CBC News Story on the wall being found by clicking here