Mayor blocks Facebook comments
Oroville’s Chuck Reynolds says move was to curb harassment
OROVILLE >> Oroville Mayor Chuck Reynolds blocked all comments on his official Facebook page since Sept. 1 after dealing with what he says was a string of comments from an unnamed person harassing others in the comment section.
Reynolds is one of the few sitting politicians in Butte County who actively maintains a Facebook page as an official. Reynolds said he usually posts updates about the city including events, fires, photos and public safety news.
After an individual allegedly harassed other individuals in the comment sections of his Facebook page, Reynolds said he made the decision to block everyone entirely from comments following advice from his legal counsel.
“I don’t want to create a platform for people to disparage others. I’m not into it — I’m trying to build up a community and the people in it,” Reynolds said. “I have a job; I have a family; I have all these things I’d rather spend my time doing. When I put in work for the city, I don’t want to waste my time because my time could be better spent with my family or doing something else.”
Reynolds said his lawyer told him that blocking all comments is legal, but blocking specific individuals from commenting is not legal.
“I cut off commenting altogether because legally I’m not allowed to block some people and not others … which is a shame because we have some really good people that have really good input,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds said this person was attacking other commenters and publishing their personal information, which prompted him to shut down comments entirely.
“He was attacking everybody, not just me,” Reynolds said.
Reynolds and his counsel appear to be correct that blocking all comments won’t violate first amendment rights.
First Amendment Coalition Legal Director David Loy said there is nothing in the First Amendment or California’s Brown Act that requires a mayor or other political figures to have social media.
If a political figure chooses to use social media like Facebook page in an official capacity, the comment sections are effectively a limited public forum, Loy said, which means officials cannot discriminate based on viewpoint of speech.
A political figure removing the ability to comment entirely “would be even handed across the board,” Loy said. “They might well be free to say ‘I’m tired of managing all these Facebook comments, and I’m just going to close them down.’”
Loy said officials running government pages can’t block people selectively based on viewpoint or tone of speech, but there may be a legitimate reason to do if the comments themselves are regarded as unprotected speech.
“It would be a different matter if someone came onto this forum and spewed nothing but epithets and profanity and truly abusive rhetoric regardless of political point of view,” Loy said.
Lay said it could be argued that viewpoint-neutral rules could be created to moderate the Facebook page to avoid abusive comments more effectively.
While Reynolds blocked everyone from commenting on Sept. 1, one Oroville
resident who reached out to this newspaper said he was blocked before everyone else.
Richard Pickard is an Oroville resident who said he can no longer view comments that he had posted on Reynold’s Facebook posts before everyone had been blocked from commenting.
Pickard said he posted comments criticizing the mayor’s personal history, his past decision making as well other city council candidates. Pickard said he was trying to inform other people about the Butte County Grand Jury report, but admitted he was fighting back against others.
“Occasionally, there are some people — just like myself I guess I’m the opposite side — that will go down and start arguing to the point of calling each other names,” Pickard said. “And I’m not above that.”
Pickard said he didn’t feel like his comments constituted any harassment, but that they were informative of candidates’ records backed up with related articles.
Pickard’s alleged comments are not visible on any of the mayor’s posts, nor are other posts that Pickard
said Reynolds wrote in retaliation to Pickard’s and others activity.
A Facebook post by Reynolds on Aug. 18 endorsing council candidate Shawn Webber shows that 50 comments were posted, but only 31 comments are visible from a regular Facebook account — which may suggest that some comments are not viewable.
Reynolds said he doesn’t recall deleting any posts and only recently found out who Pickard is — after he blocked all comments entirely Sept. 1.
Loy said that if a person’s comments were blocked before everyone else, they may have legal cause of action. Banning comments entirely won’t absolve any potentially illegal actions that were intended beforehand, Loy said.
“Different matters can arise if we’re talking about bona fide, genuine true threats of harm or other unprotected speech,” Loy said. “But simply being annoying or rude is not grounds to be blocked.”
Reynolds said he intends to keep the comment section closed for the time being and may see about opening it up after the election season.