Police halt comments on Facebook page
The embattled Antioch Police Department has disabled comments on its Facebook page as of Wednesday.
Acting City Manager Forrest Ebbs said that he directed staffers to stop allowing comments on the police Facebook page, though commenting is still allowed on the department's less popular Instagram and Twitter pages.
“We made the decision — and this is my direction in collaboration with the police chief — that the community would be best served if we disabled the comments on Facebook,” Ebbs said Wednesday afternoon. “Facebook is the most popular of our media sites, and it was the one that was beginning to kind of evolve into that public forum.”
Antioch's Police Department has made national news in recent weeks over revelations that dozens of officers had communicated using racist, homophobic and sexist text messages and memes, sometimes making light of on-duty violence or talking about adding fake confessions to arrest reports. Eight officers also have been under investigation by the FBI and the Contra Costa County district attorney for more than a year for suspected civil rights violations and other crimes, and another officer recently was fired over an in-custody beating.
And though Ebbs admitted there will be challenges ahead regarding news about the police, he said the Facebook page was never intended to be “the community discussion forum for very important topics that we have now — and it was drifting that way.”
The acting city manager said the city has a number of public forums already through the Police Department, as well as listening sessions such as Coffee
With the Cops and other community engagement efforts, Ebbs said.
“We want to have residents take advantage of those because they are really productive forums,” he said. “And again, they are tailored to the residents and those who work and live here. So we are really trying to steer people toward that.”
Ebbs said the city's communications outreach strategy is geared toward those who live or work in the community, whereas Facebook is open to everyone no matter where he or she lives.
“Facebook is open to the world, right?” he said. “And, so we want to make sure that we hear the voices of our residents and the people who live and work here. And that's what our forums are for.”
Ebbs said no one was monitoring the Police Department's Facebook pages, and even though commenters might post incorrect information, the staff didn't want to get into factchecking or responding back and forth with them.
“That's something we're very reluctant to do, to begin editing on any basis,” he said. “There's a strong precedent that supports people's rights to communicate once that communication is open, so we wanted to avoid the situation where we had to make those decisions on a post-by-post basis.
“We're strong proponents of the First Amendment, the right to freedom of speech, and so we wouldn't want to censor folks.”
Ebbs said the city wants to present a consistent message to residents.
Some on social media questioned whether it was legal to disable comments, but according to a First Amendment Coalition spokesman, it is.
“Generally, if a public agency opens up a forum for speech there, they can't discriminate based on viewpoint within that forum, but they might not be required to keep it open indefinitely,” said David Loy, legal director for the First Amendment Coalition.
If it's a one-way channel for dispensing information — rather than a forum — a government entity is not required to accept comments in return, he said.
“I don't like it,” Loy added. “Obviously, I think the government should be as transparent and responsive and accountable as possible.”
Reached Wednesday evening, Mayor Lamar Thorpe said he didn't know where the idea for the change came from, but he said he favored having one centralized social media page with everything posting in one location. Other nearby cities such as Oakley do it that way, with all city news in one spot.
“It's a more streamlined and efficient way,” Thorpe said.
Just consuming crime news, for example, “isn't always healthy” Thorpe said, noting there's much more to be said about the city than that.
“I just think that gives you a false perception of reality,” the mayor added. “From my perspective, I think we should have one city social media platform, whether it's Facebook, Instagram, whatever, and everything kind of runs through there and people get an array of information from parks and recreation to policing to public works issues and more.”
Police Chief Steven Ford did not return messages, but the department posted a comment on its Facebook page Wednesday, saying:
“The Antioch Police Department has been directed to disable public comments on Facebook social media posts. If you would like to provide your feedback, please contact us at 925779-6801 or email us at APDCommunityFeedback@ antiochca.gov.”