Letter to Editor States Mendocino County DA’s Office Cannot Block Access to Social Media Sites
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District Attorney David Eyster
Assistant DA Dale Trigg
Chief Investigator Andy AlvaradoBlocking comments on DA Social Media site
The District Attorney’s public information posts must be available to all, whether it be on the official county website or on Facebook, the site of choice. Your call. But you cannot block access to the site at your discretion. In June, I raised this issue with you. The block has returned. Please read the attached information, and act accordingly. Otherwise, I will enlist legal support on behalf of local journalists.
[Public Officials: Beware Blocking Critics on Social Media (americanbar.org)]
https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/social-media-for-public-officials-101
“If a public official uses their account to carry out their role as an elected official, then their page or account is subject to the First Amendment. That means they cannot engage in most forms of censorship such as blocking someone or deleting someone’s comments just because of their subject or opinion. It is also generally unacceptable for the official to ask the platform to delete comments for them.”
Mike Geniella
Media Consultant
A post from the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Facebook page with no comment option and “Mendocino County District Attorney limited who can comment on this post” posted where the comment section would normally be, can be found by clicking here.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
The second link is quite explicit and excellent advice.
Well an interesting issue is whether the press can use a social media forum for demanding information. There are limits on the information the press can demand and the way they can demand it. If the public itself can not demand information then neither can the press. And they can’t use an online forum to circumvent the methods of getting information under FOIA.
https://www.justice.gov/oip/blog/foia-post-2008-oip-guidance-new-limitations-tolling-foias-response-time
Blocking comments is not necessarily the same thing as restricting access to the public information. So exactly what and who got banned? A letter to the editor directed at specific officials personally instead of to the public about the issue is prety suspect itself.
One of the links in the letter says- “You may also be able to limit who can speak in the forum, so long as the limitations are viewpoint-neutral and reasonable in light of the purpose of the forum. For example, if you have a reliable way of differentiating constituents from others, the First Amendment might permit you to restrict the forum to your constituents.” Or I suspect if a commenter is hijacking the thread for their own commercial reasons like maybe an attorney trying to drum up public outcry for his client? Or a media consultant using it to promote his business and not as a member of the public?