The official account of Jun's local police tweeted this last month.

Buscamos al conductor de este vehículo por conducción temeraria en la Plaza de la Iglesia esta tarde#Colabora pic.twitter.com/EAlfX6Rvke

— Policia de Jun (@PoliciaJUN) April 19, 2016

Translated, it says, “We are looking for the driver of this vehicle, who drove recklessly in the Plaza of the Church this afternoon. #Collaboration”.

Jun, pronounced “hoon”, is a small Spanish town situated in the foothills outside Granada in the south. With a population of 3,500 people, the town is home to one of the most active Twitter users in the world. Its mayor, Rodríguez Salas, has spent the last five years revolutionizing the running of the city, and challenging conventional boundaries of administrative work and domestic communications. 

Via Twitter, townspeople can  manage their day-to-day activities. Feeling ill? Book an appointment with your doctor through a Twitter direct message. Saw a robbery? Mention to the local police the details (and include a picture of the crime scene while you’re at it) in a tweet. Upset about some law that was just enacted? Tweet your concerns and tag the mayor himself. Efficient, right ?

Salas’ encouragement of the use of Twitter stemmed from his goal to create greater accountability and increase transparency over how Jun was run, he told The New York Times. Twitter allows quicker interaction compared to other forms of social media, such as Facebook.

(Read also: Twitter enables in-app Spotify previews)

Of course, traditional administrative paperwork still exists, like completing forms at the town hall for public services. But Salas reported that since adopting the use of Twitter, he had saved US$380,000 from the local budget, saving 13 percent annually since 2011.

Aside from easing the town’s budget, the extensive use of Twitter in the city allows for the reduction of redundant jobs. Instead of having to elaborate on bureaucracies of reporting to a police officer, who has to go through his boss and so on before the problem is solved and/or the mayor is informed of the potential issue, citizens are able to communicate suspicious activity directly to the mayor. Jun is reported to only have one officer, but Salas jokes that “we do not have one police officer, we have 3,500.”

Salas believes that engaging in such open communication forges goodwill among residents. Additionally, problems are quickly rectified as seen from the #EndesaMeEstresa (Endesa, you’re stressing me out) hashtag recently used to highlight problems with Endesa, a local utility company.

However, Jun doesn’t entirely accept the mayor’s reliance on Twitter, with several residents still casting skepticism toward the platform. Some say that they’d prefer officials to focus on providing public services and running the town, as they should, rather than promoting themselves on social media.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether Jun’s innovative governance can be replicated on the global platform. (sab/kes)

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