Nelson council limits Facebook comments amid surge in abuse
Comments criticising local councils on social media are nothing new, but a photo making fun of road workers in Nelson has led its council to take a different approach.
A member of the public recently posted a photo of roadworks in Nelson on a community Facebook page, poking fun at seven council contractors working on a resealing project in Atawhai.
Nelson City Council communications manager James Murray said the caption indicated that the workers were standing around doing nothing, and many of the comments on the Facebook post, which was eventually removed by the page admin, were either unfair criticism or misinformation.
As a result, Murray and his team took a different approach on social media.
They reposted the photo on the council’s Facebook page to provide more context about the process behind the work.
Murray said the photo showed a lab technician testing ground layers to ensure they were dry enough to lay asphalt, and it was a moment in time with a limited view of the worksite. The post compared infrastructure work to baking bread – it said some of the time had to be spent kneading dough, while at other times the dough had to be left to do its thing.
The post garnered more than 800 reactions and more than 300 comments. Some complimented the council’s approach.
“Really cool response to this photo being posted about on a local page, well done. And I love learning a little bit about something I know nothing about,” one comment read.
“Good on you Nelson City Council. These guys do work extremely hard. I would like to see those armchair experts that like to criticise them while knowing nothing about their job dig a trench in the height of summer or in the rain when the ground is soaking wet.”
Others remained unimpressed.
“It’s an all too common sight these days,” one said.
“Did y’all really just try to justify why there’s so many people standing around doing nothing? And someone in the council just got paid to justify this whole photo? Good to see ratepayers’ [money at] work.
“Now show us a photo where they’re all working. Maybe we share this strategy with home builders. Get the electrician, roofer and the painters out there while they’re doing the excavation so that they’re ‘all ready to go’ ... By the way, a supervisor and a boss? For seven people? Perhaps instead of justifying these scenes we should be holding these companies to account.”
Murray said social media had changed dramatically in recent years, and the council’s social media strategy was being updated to reflect this.
“Outside of this incident, anyone working with social media over the past 15 years would tell you that what started out as a place where people could hold a decent debate about public life has ended up being something quite different.
“Despite the efforts of some community members who do their best to keep things civil, comments sections for local and central government and media are full of misplaced rage, unfair criticism of staff and misinformation.”
The communications team had reviewed three months of Facebook data, and found that about 25% of the comments on its pages were from 46 people, Murray said.
“This is not a representative cross-section of our city, and the time council staff have to spend moderating comments for abuse and misinformation is not a good use of ratepayer money.”
To counter this, comments would now be turned off on “information only” posts. People could still comment on posts where feedback was useful, but staff had the option to turn them off after users had been given the opportunity to comment.
Murray said the comments section was not a healthy way to debate issues the community was facing.
“I often spend time reassuring staff who are distressed by commentary on social media,” he said.
“It’s not OK to call people working for their city ‘idiots’ or ‘clowns’, and we’re under no obligation to respond to people who engage with us in that manner.”
He said staff would use the extra time to create higher-quality, more engaging social media posts, and make better use of other channels of communication such as Antenno.
The Nelson (New Zealand) Community Group Facebook page, where the photo was originally posted, was created five years ago and now has close to 30,000 members.
One of its admins said the photo of the road workers was taken down shortly after being posted because of the number of nasty comments it had attracted, and because it identified a number of people who were potentially unaware that their photo had been posted online. They were pleased to see the Nelson City Council’s response.
The admin said that as the group had grown, there had been an increase in nastiness, threats and offensive material. In some cases, the police had been notified about activity on the page.
Repeat offenders and scammers were blocked, they said, and moderating the content could be time-consuming if the subject matter was controversial, but at other times the page almost ran itself.
Local Government New Zealand president Sam Broughton said LGNZ encouraged constructive conversations and councils being accountable, but this should be done respectfully.
He said there was no place for abuse and threats. A recent poll of elected members showed that nearly two-thirds faced abuse online, while 53% said the abuse they received was worse than a year ago.
“No-one deserves to be subjected to this sort of behaviour when going about their job.”
LGNZ held a Zoom meeting for councils and elected members last week with police and Netsafe to support and equip them with tools to manage the abuse they receive.