Thurmont considers disabling comments on town Facebook pages

Feb. 20—The town of Thurmont is considering disabling or limiting comments on its Facebook pages.

Policies drafted by town attorney Leslie Powell provide options for the town to either disable comments on social media posts entirely or follow guidelines allowing the town's staff to remove comments that threaten or promote violence.

Mayor John Kinnaird said Monday that he requested that those policies be drafted after years of the town Facebook page receiving what he called vulgar comments.

"Just look at the Facebook page and some of the comments there and you can see that some of it's pretty disgusting; it has no place on a municipal Facebook page," Kinnaird said Monday.

The town has two Facebook pages. One is for its government and one for its Main Street organization.

When asked if specific comments or events motivated the request for new social media policies, Kinnaird said no — he had been considering policies like these for three or four years.

Kinnaird said the proposed policies have nothing to do with the controversy surrounding the Simmers property annexation, which voters overturned through a referendum.

"It's sort of been a free-for-all and we have not had a defined social media policy," Kinnaird said at a Feb. 14 town meeting. "So, we're considering implementing a social media policy sometime in the future."

At that meeting, Thurmont Chief Administrative Officer Jim Humerick said that over the past year or so, town social media pages have taken an unfortunate turn away from a place to disseminate town information.

"I think there's been a lot of personal attacks that have happened on social media, both against elected officials, staff, against resident versus resident," Humerick said. "That's not what the town of Thurmont wants to have their social media out there for. We're here to provide information to our citizens and I think it's gotten away from that, unfortunately."

Powell said the policy to disable comments on town social media posts would not violate the First Amendment rights of potential commentators because the town is not required to host a public forum on social media platforms.

"[This policy] is not intended to prevent people from communicating or exercising their First Amendment rights to petition the government, to come in and make their comments. It's just not in that forum," Powell said at the town meeting.

Kinnaird, Humerick and Commissioner Wes Hamrick all said during the Feb. 14 meeting that they want public comments, but, if the policy is adopted, encouraged residents to submit comments by phone or email, in person or in writing.

"I say you remove that ability for people to air their grievances in a very disrespectful manner" by disabling comments, Hamrick said. "I'm with the old school. Pick up the phone, send an email, come here Tuesday night. Give us a call."

The other policy the board discussed Feb. 14 was related to moderating comments. It would establish guidelines for commenting on town social media posts and let town employees remove comments after documenting them, should the comments violate guidelines.

"This policy was drafted with current legal standards," Powell said. "If you are going to allow commenting, [this policy] should pass muster, based on the current state of the law."

Powell said in an interview on Monday that the comment-moderating policy would not bar someone from saying, for example, that they don't like the way the police department handled an issue or stop someone from calling a politician an "idiot."

"That's not something that would warrant deletion. Is it appropriate? No. But is it protected communication? Yes," Powell said.

The policy would instead remove threatening or violent comments, according to Powell, after town employees document them.

Former Thurmont Mayor Marty Burns suggested at the Feb. 14 meeting that the mayor and board are considering these policies because they don't want to hear from disgruntled residents about decisions the commissioners recently made.

"It's ridiculous that you guys are doing this, and you're doing it because you got a face shot," Burns said.

Burns also asked Humerick for the comment that precipitated the policy. Humerick did not respond to Burns.

Humerick could not be reached for comment Monday, but Kinnaird said his request of the draft policy was not motivated by one comment, and he welcomed critique from residents.

"The vast majority of the Facebook comments are decent," Kinnaird said. "I have no problem with criticism. But when they start using vulgarity, that's where I draw the line."