The Washoe County School District in December announced on Facebook it was changing its policy for commenting on the district’s social media accounts. Among the changes was the provision that anyone commenting on social media has to abide by all school district policies, they must engage in constructive dialogue, and users have to comply with all laws.
“Users must adhere to all applicable laws, regulations and WCSD policies,” the post, which was closed to comments, read. “Violations may result in the removal of content and, if necessary, the reporting of such violations to the appropriate authorities. Any content deemed offensive, defamatory or harmful to the school district or individuals associated with it may be subject to removal.”
Those requirements had free-speech organizations crying foul, saying the new policy violates the First Amendment.
“This policy’s language is excessively broad and vague,” said Aaron Terr, director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
“The First Amendment doesn’t allow the school district to open its social media pages to public comment and then pick and choose which views citizens can express,” he added. “By restricting speech the district subjectively considers ‘inappropriate,’ ‘offensive,’ or ‘harmful’ to the district, the policy violates the First Amendment and puts any criticism of the district at risk of censorship.”
Civil Liberties Director and Senior Staff Attorney David Greene, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, also called the district’s new policy problematic.
“As a matter of First Amendment law, agencies have some ability to set content-based restrictions on the interactive spaces of their social media accounts, as long as they are consistent with the general purpose of the forum,” he told This Is Reno.
However, the district cannot impose restrictions based on viewpoints, Greene added. “The part of this that strikes me as blatantly impermissible is the prohibition of content ‘that is not aligned with the values of WCSD.’ There are other prohibitions that may be problematically vague. But that’s the obvious defect.”
When asked about the legality of the new policy, school officials defended it.
“The WCSD’s social media page is our possession and our speech,” district spokesperson Victoria Campbell said. “We invite our community to participate on our social media platform; however, the district takes a content-neutral approach and will remove comments that amount to threats, are obscene, promote violence, include personal attacks, are slanderous, are disruptive to a school environment, or interfere with the rights of others to post.”
Critics said those criteria are too subjective and vague.
“FIRE has seen municipalities and public universities adopt similarly unconstitutional policies,” Terr with FIRE said. “Last year, FIRE and the National Coalition Against Censorship’s advocacy spurred a Tennessee city to revise its social media policy banning comments that might ‘negatively affect the city’s image.’”
“Any municipality or public institution with a social media account should take care to ensure its policies comply with the First Amendment,” he added.
The Tennessee case similarly had the City of Bristol, Tennessee, claiming it could remove comments and ban users for personal attacks and disparaging comments “of any kind.” The city changed its policies after FIRE notified Bristol that its rules were unconstitutional.
“That’s a win for Bristol residents and others who wish to comment online on issues related to the city,” FIRE posted online.
There is a case awaiting a decision at the U.S. Supreme Court about two San Diego school board members who banned people from viewing their Facebook accounts. The board members blocked parents, who in turn sued the district. The case is awaiting a decision.
Similarly, This Is Reno sued the City of Reno after it refused to produce social media messages by a council member who bragged about how much he engages with people online.
Council member Devon Reese claimed in a sworn affidavit to Washoe County’s Second Judicial District Court that no such records exist, but if they did, they are not public records. This Is Reno challenged the claim after submitting evidence that Reese frequently uses his social media accounts to conduct business related to his role as a politician. The case is pending a decision in the Nevada Supreme Court.
