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Council backs revised social media policy to re-enable public comments with moderation rules
Summary
Council endorsed an administrative policy that re-enables public commenting on city social media accounts as a limited public forum, with a code of conduct, archiving and moderation (hide before delete) and preservation for public-record requests.
The council endorsed Resolution 2026-41 signaling support for a revised administrative social media policy that will re-enable public commenting on city-owned social media accounts as a limited public forum with clear moderation rules. City attorney Jennifer Tangano said the policy sets time, place, and manner restrictions for topic-related comments, provides staff with a process to hide or archive comments pending review, and retains deleted content in an archive to support public-record requests.
Tangano said the policy is intended to allow departments to use social media for targeted engagement — for example, parks-and-recreation posts that invite feedback related to a specific event — while limiting off-topic or abusive content. “We are taking the position that, because this is a limited public forum, we don't have to publish everybody's comment, but we will archive and respond to public-record requests,” she said. Councilors expressed support, noting the need for civility and the technical ability to automate archiving and comments moderation.
