WHY PEOPLE DELETE COMMENT ON FACEBOOK FREE
Some, though, said it's a tough balance to strike in weighing posts they deem offensive versus others' right to free speech. Other local police officials reiterated the usefulness of Facebook in receiving tips from the public and getting important news bulletins out, such as crime alerts and missing persons posters.
Wiley, Beech Grove's city attorney, said the city will work with the ACLU with the hope of eventually reinstating the page, perhaps in a form that does not allow public comment. "Unfortunately, we will be losing a most effective tool for sharing information with the citizens of Beech Grove," the department's final post said, citing advice from legal counsel as the reason for taking the account down. In response to the lawsuit, the Beech Grove Police Department shut down its Facebook page entirely on Wednesday. One of Quick's posts that the department deleted questioned whether police and city officials were posting accurate crime statistics. The Beech Grove residents, Kymberly Quick and Deborah Mays-Miller, say the department not only deleted their comments, but blocked them from posting on the page in the future, according to the suit. In the case of Beech Grove, the ACLU is suing the department on behalf of two women who say they simply posted critical comments, but nothing inappropriate. "If they were just removing obscenities … that's OK," he said. "If the only offensive messages they remove are critical, and they overlook the ones that are positive, that would be a problem." "We do get a lot of bad, but we get a lot of good, too, and take the good with the bad."Īn exception, though, Orentlicher said, is if a comment is inappropriate. "Believe me, you can go to just about any post on our Facebook page and see (criticism)," Gasior said. In Fishers, all city Facebook pages are considered to be a taxpayer medium, said Autumn Gasior, director of public relations for the city. But a government Facebook page is different and should be considered a public forum, experts and city officials say. Pence later apologized.Ĭarmel Mayor Jim Brainard was similarly blasted last year when citizens complained that their critical comments were deleted from his Facebook page. In Brainard's case, the Facebook page was for his re-election campaign and therefore under his own control. Mike Pence was hotly criticized in 2013, when IndyStar reported that constituents suspected their comments were deleted from the governor's official Facebook page because they were critical of Pence and his views on gay marriage. "Anyone can comment on our Facebook page," said Greenwood Police Assistant Chief Matthew Fillenwarth.
McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis.Ī number of city and police officials reached by IndyStar on Wednesday say they do not remove comments from an official city page unless the comment is profane or violent. "There's no requirement that they create this page, but once they create it and open it up for public comment, they can't discriminate based on the comment," said David Orentlicher, a constitutional law professor at the Indiana University Robert H. Experts disagree, saying that if a government agency creates a social media page that allows public comment, officials cannot remove comments solely because they are critical. The issue is at the center of a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana that alleges the Beech Grove Police Department removed critical comments from the department's Facebook page.Ĭraig Wiley, city attorney for Beech Grove, says he believes the city has a "constitutional basis" to move forward and defend itself against the lawsuit, though he said they're negotiating with the ACLU because of the cost of litigation. That begs the question: Can the police police their own Facebook accounts?
With a social media page, however, those departments also are providing a forum that opens them up to complaints and criticism. Watch Video: Can government censor Facebook comments?įacebook is a crime-fighting tool for police, law enforcement officials say, with most local departments active on Facebook, inviting public comments and tips.