The Perils of Social Media

Debate-time Twitter monitors got a surprise last night when it appeared that the Austin Police Department had waded into the political fray, with the retweet of a GOP political commentator. For the record: It was a mistake.

It seems that a member of the APD's public information staff mistakenly thought she was on her personal Twitter account – and not the APD's official account – when she retweeted this: "@murphymike: It’s funny; tonight Romney is much better than his campaign, Obama is far worse," a Tweet originally posted by Mike Murphy, a self-described "Semi-defrocked senior GOP Political Consultant...Meet the Press Analyst...Hollywood Writer/Producer...TIME Magazine Columnist" living in Los Angeles.

After the APD staffer caught the mistake it took a while, but the Tweet was deleted. Not before crack Twitter-watchers caught the tweet and at least one wondered, back at APD, why the department would be wading into presidential politics.

For the record, says Anna Sabana, the APD's public information manager, the APD was not wading into debate or presidential politics. It was simply a mistake, a social media snafu, if you will – though Sabana notes that it's nice to know tweeters are actually checking out the department's page.