Shut it down. (Photo: Flickr)

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has laid down the law on what his 35,000-strong force can post on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.

According to a memo obtained by the New York Daily News, Mr. Kelly handed down the iron-fisted rules in a three page announcement declaring that neighborhood precincts can no longer create new profiles on social media platforms. He also told cops that they could no longer “disclose or allude” to their rank and must stop from posting pictures of themselves in their uniforms unless they’re at an official ceremony.

“Members of the service utilizing personal social media sites are to exercise good judgement and demonstrate the same degree of professionalism expected of them while performing their official duties,” the order reads as scooped by the NYDN.

The NYPD is well aware of just how damning online evidence can be. The department has made a recent push into social media surveillance, regularly using it to tamp down on illicit gun activity in Brooklyn. Recently, however, Mr. Kelly's officers have been the one caught red-handed on social networks. A rash of stories have exposed staffers as bigots for spewing vitriolic comments on Twitter and Facebook.

Back in August, 17 officers faced discipline for posting racially charged comments regarding participants at the 2011 West Indian American Day Parade by referring to them as “savages” and “animals.”

A police training expert labeled Mr. Kelly’s rules as “unauthorized censorship” to the Daily News, but we like to think of it as a necessary evil.

(Photo: Inquisitr)

If you received a new friend request recently, and it wasn't from a foreign spammer or a Taliban official posing as a hot chick, there's now a chance that it's an NYPD officer. According to the New York Daily News, the NYPD recently instituted its first official guidelines for using social media to benefit investigations, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has decided that spying on people using fake Facebook profiles is a-O.K. Consider it the online version of stop-and-frisk. Amurica!

Writes the Daily News:

The five-page memo issued by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly last week says officers involved in probes involving social media may register their aliases with the department and use a department-issued laptop whose Internet-access card can’t be traced back to the NYPD.

Never mind the fact that using aliases on Facebook is actually against the company's terms of service. Zuck can't realize that dream of a true and open social web if people are going by fake names, now can he? But when it comes to nabbing criminals online, Facebook's TOS has seemingly been tossed by the wayside. To the darknet, everyone!

Yeah, dude, they totally saw that Facebook pic.

Back in June, Commissioner Ray Kelly revealed that the NYPD is just as likely as your ex-boyfriend to troll Facebook to see if you've been up to anything bad, at least the public events page. “We look at social networking. We’re very much focused on weekend parties,” said Mr. Kelly. Now, it seems, they've made it official.

Fresh off the heels of the Catch a Looter Tumblr that attempted to out rioters using political strife as an excuse to get a new iPad (or in some cases what looks like a Tanqueray bottle), The New York Post reports that the police have formed a new unit social media unit "to track troublemakers who announce plans or brag about their crimes on Twitter, MySpace and Facebook." In London, rioters have been using both Twitter and BlackBerry messages to find targets and outwit the authorities.

It looks like the NYPD is pretty serious about it. They've tapped one of the departments "online and gang gurus," Assistant Commissioner Kevin O'Connor, to be in charge of the "new juvenile justice unit." (Congratulations, olds! You're free to do as you please.) Mr. Connor has successfully used social media to catch actual criminals (as opposed to hard parties) in the past. If you see a friend request from him, you know what to do.