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When it comes to social media, the City of New Bern is stressing the importance of maintaining a professional image from its elected and appointed officials.
During Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting, City Attorney Scott Davis presented a draft set of guidelines for elected officials and appointed members of city boards and commissions regarding the use of personal and official social media platforms.
In the presentation packet, it states, the city recognizes officials may choose to express themselves by posting personal information upon social media platforms or by making comments on sites hosted by other persons, groups, or organizations, however, this right should not interfere with city operations.
Though Davis did not discuss all of the guidelines in detail, he mentioned New Bern is one of a handful of cities in the state attempting to implement a series of guidelines.
“We are one of maybe three, four, five cities that have tried to offer guidelines to public officials. It is difficult because the law is quickly changing and there are many subtleties and shades of these issues when giving you meaningful dos and don’ts,” David said.
The simplest version of the city’s advice is to not break the law.
How one goes about doing that is complicating, according to Davis, who mentioned North Carolina Public Record and Disclosing Confidential Information or Employee Privacy Records as the main laws officials could be in danger of violating.
More:Violation of public record law: New Bern Police Department withholding records
Officials are being cautioned about subtle actions on social media
Liking, sharing, retweeting, or commenting on any social media posts could be perceived by the public as an endorsement regarding city matters.
There is an additional section for “best practices” that officials are also advised to follow while reminding officials about the potential impact social media interactions may have before hitting the send button.
Additional guidelines for city employees and an updated policy for website administrators are forthcoming. The board was not instructed to take action for adopting the guidelines on Tuesday as the staff is expected to make some adjustments to the draft.
The board will be presented the final draft at a later date.
What are the guidelines officials are expected to follow?
Any city business officials mention or discuss from either a personal or official account will be considered public records through North Carolina law.
1. All officials are expected and required to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with the Code of Ethics.
2. Officials must not reveal any confidential or privileged information about the City, its constituents, its employees, or its contractors. Officials must be particularly careful to protect against inadvertent disclosure of confidential or privileged information.
3. Unless the official has been designated to serve as a spokesperson, officials should never represent themselves as a spokesperson for the Board of Aldermen, a City board or committee, the City administration, or any City department.
4. Officials are expressly prohibited from using personal or official social media to engage in any activity or conduct that violates federal, state, or local law. Elected officials are also prohibited from using official social media accounts to circumvent election or campaign requirements.
5. Officials are prohibited from deleting posts and related comments regarding any city-related matters from personal or official social media platforms as such action violates the North Carolina Public Records Laws, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 132- 1 et seq. In the event an official inadvertently posts erroneous information or desires to update a previous post, the official should add a disclaimer to the original post and/ or publish a new post with a disclaimer and the revised content.
6. Officials may delete comments or content published on city-related posts on either their personal or official social media accounts that contain offensive comments that target or disparage any ethnic, racial, or religious group, advocate illegal activity, promote particular services, products, or political organizations, infringe on copyrights or trademarks, or use personally identifiable medical information. Content deleted pursuant to this subsection must be archived as required by the North Carolina Public Records Law, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 132- 1 et seq.
7. Officials should be mindful that posting content regarding city-related matters could inadvertently result in the violation of the Open Meetings Law if enough other officials engage on the post, resulting in a quorum. If this occurs, the online conversation should immediately cease with no further posts by the officials, and the City Clerk should be notified accordingly.
8. Officials who open the interactive features of their social media accounts to the public at large are prohibited from using the platform’s blocking function to censor selected users.
Reporter Trevor Dunnell can be reached by email at tdunnell@newbernsj.com. Please consider supporting local journalism by signing up for a digital subscription for as little as $1 a month. Newbernsj.com/subscribenow
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