Government Implementation of Social Media: Transparency and First Amendment Rights

Blogs, Facebook updates, and other interactive social media are fantastic aids to local government transparency. In the current economic environment local governments are increasingly aware that they benefit from showing their citizens that they are using their resources well. Social media allows local governments to showcase progress on endeavors from the construction of facilities to detailing how federal stimulus dollars are being used.

While local governments realize how social media can benefit them, they must also negotiate some of the pitfalls in implementation of such public forums. The Institute for Local Government has posted an informative paper Social Media and Public Agencies:Legal Issues to Be Aware of.

The paper discusses several legal issues that constituents might raise, chief among them is the first ammendment issue. If a local govenment chooses to allow comments on its blogs, comments or likes on its Facebook page, or other imput on its interactive web presence, the paper points out that local govenments "can control what its part of the conversation says, there are limited options for managing what others might say.” If the agency allows its constituents to leave feedback on the website, it cannot exclude (or delete) comments that are negative toward the agency. Facebook and some blog software allow adminsitrators to filter out comments that use profanity. One way to do deal with public input that the agency does not desire to appear on their site is to draw up and publish a social media policy deliniating what comments are not acceptable. However, public forums operated by local goverments cannot delete or prohibit comments simply becuase they express views different from or critical of the agency, its employees or officicls.

Social media offers so many opportunities for local goverments to inform and interact with their constituents that the pitfalls should not cause them to shy away from this new technology, but they would do well to approach it with a broad knowledge of what legal issues they may encounter in its implementation.