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Howard County IT recommends single social-media policy, disabling comments on county posts
Summary
Information Systems official Jeremy Stevens urged commissioners to adopt one countywide social-media policy and to disable comments on government posts while permitting sharing, citing the burden of moderating spam and malicious links across many accounts.
Jeremy Stevens, the county’s Information Systems representative, told commissioners he recommends creating a single Howard County social-media policy rather than separate policies for each department or individual accounts. "I did a quick search upstairs and counted over 17 different accounts," he said, and recommended disabling comments on government posts while keeping share/retweet functions to allow public distribution and discussion off-platform.
Why it matters: Stevens said a unified policy and disabling comments on county-controlled posts would reduce staff time spent moderating spam, malware and inappropriate links while preserving citizens’ ability to share official posts. He framed the change as a way to keep government posts "clean" and avoid dedicating county staff hours to policing comment sections.
Board reaction and next steps: An official identified in the record as Alan voiced support for the approach, saying the intent is not to prevent people from speaking on private pages but to control content on county pages. Alan said he will bring an official proposal back to the board for consideration. No formal vote on a policy was taken at this meeting.
What remains unresolved: The board endorsed the idea in principle and asked staff to prepare formal policy language. The meeting transcript records the recommendation and a pledge to return with an official proposal but contains no draft policy or specific enforcement language.
