Comments OK Under Montgomery's New Social Media Policy

For the past 10 months, has been tentatively dipping its toes into social media waters. But for the next six months, at least, they’ll be diving right in.

Trustees on Monday approved a new social media policy that will cover not only the village’s Facebook page and the Police Department’s Nixle account, but also Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin, three tools village leaders have not yet explored. And under this new policy, you’ll be able to leave comments and interact with village officials directly.

But wait, you’re saying. Residents can already leave comments on the village’s Facebook page. Technically, that’s true. However, the Village Board initially directed staff to disable comments on the Facebook page, concerned that residents could post incorrect information.

Since Facebook does not allow owners of fan pages to disable comments, village staff has been doing what they consider the next best thing: deleting those comments shortly after they appear. (Village Manager Anne Marie Gaura said they keep printed records of all Facebook comments, to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.)

Comments have been the biggest issue of concern for municipalities trying out social media. Typical Facebook users are allowed to delete comments they don’t like from their pages, but if government gets into that game, it becomes a First Amendment question.

Village Attorney Steve Andersson said deleting comments is OK, as long as it's done across the board, with no favoritism shown.

“Once you open it up it becomes a limited public forum,” Andersson said during the initial conversations on this issue in February. “You can’t discriminate against people based on what they post there. You have to be prepared to open it up to unpopular comments.”

Village leaders say the majority of the comments left on the Facebook page are positive, or pose genuine questions, to which village staff responds. (Before, of course, deleting both the comments and the responses.) With more than 610 fans as of this week, the Facebook page has become “a decent way to communicate with a good chunk of the population,” according to Jamie Belongia, assistant to the village manager.

With that in mind, the board unanimously approved a trial period for the new policy, which allows comments, and sets a series of nine criteria under which they can be removed.

They include the usual rules (no foul language, sexual content, discriminatory comments, solicitation, or illegal activity), but comments which support or oppose a political campaign or ballot measure, or which regard a specific village employee or official, will also be deleted.

Trustee Bill Keck asked for a tally of staff time spent monitoring comments during the six-month trial period, and Belongia said staff would provide that—but added that it shouldn’t be much.

“Answering each question takes about a minute, if that,” she said. “But we can try to quantify it for you.”

Montgomery’s new website, which is scheduled to launch on Dec. 9, will allow for Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to be linked to it. Additionally, the Montgomery Police Department began using Nixle, a service that sends alerts to subscribers via email and text message, in July.