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Sanford adopts social media policy to standardize comments and protect First Amendment considerations
Summary
The council adopted a social media posting policy that defines when the city will allow comments and when it may turn them off for informational posts, lists disallowed content categories and cites key court cases used to shape the policy.
The Sanford City Council on Jan. 20 adopted a social media posting policy intended to create consistent, lawful standards for comments and interactions on the city’s official accounts.
City Manager Steve Buck said the policy distinguishes informational posts—where the city may turn off comments—from posts that create a public forum where public input is sought. He told the council the policy is designed to protect staff and the public while complying with First Amendment law.
"If you have an adopted policy that is coherent to the protection of First Amendment rights and free speech ... then we don't get ourselves or our communications person in harm's way," Buck said, explaining the rationale for defined categories of permissible and impermissible content.
The policy lists examples of content that may be moderated or removed in public-forum posts, including profanity and obscene language, threats, harassment, personal attacks, discriminatory or hateful language, commercial advertising and spam. The packet cites two test cases (Lindtke v. Fried and Sutliff v. Epping) as part of the legal foundation for the policy.
Council members moved and approved the policy by voice vote after noting it had been reviewed by a subcommittee. Mayor Bridal and councilors said the policy aims to ensure consistent treatment of posts and to reduce ad-hoc removals that could trigger legal issues.
What happens next: city communications staff will implement the policy on official accounts and will apply the distinctions between informational posts (comments off) and public-forum posts (comments moderated under stated rules). The policy is intended to be applied uniformly and to be revisited if legal guidance changes.
