Members of the county’s information technology committee reviewed a first draft of the policy this week.
The policy evaluates the use of county social media pages and personal use of social media sites.
According to the policy’s purpose, it outlines using social media for county business and best practices and guidelines for county officials and employees.
“I think the importance of this policy is right now we don’t have a policy and so if something comes up it’s hard for us to deal with it,” County Manager Jordan McMillen said.
Establishing county pages:
County department social media pages will need approval from the county manager.
Each department would have designated page administrators with access for page updates.
“This can be a public record and it sets some guidelines as how we as a (social media page) manager would be able to keep or delete comments,” McMillen said.
The draft of the policy states off topic comments, personal attacks, offensive language, political views, illegal activity and spam are prohibited.
It states employees are prohibited from posting on official county sites “threatening or harassing comments; political campaign comments or materials; racist, prejudicial, sexist and disparaging language about others; obscene, poronographic or other offensive materials; defamatory materials; photographs of other employees or members of the public without permission; intellectual property without permission and information about actual or potential claims of litigation involving the government.”
The policy mentions it would be posted on the social media page that representatives of Vance County government communicate through it, and communication on the page by a county employee or general public “may be subject to monitoring and disclosure to third parties as a public record.”
County Attorney Jonathan Care said there is a distinction in the policy between county employees using county social media pages and their own personal pages.
County employees’ personal social media use:
Commissioner Yolanda Feimster, who is a licensed attorney, asked if the policy is related to county pages or any social media context.
“For instance somebody during the day who has access to a computer and writes a derogatory comment on their own personal social media page during the day while they’re on county time, would this kick in?,” Feimster asked. “Because I guess when you look at their page a lot of the time someone puts their county position and that’s what gets those people in trouble.”
The policy would address personal use of social media, Care said.
“There’s a line of First Amendment cases on freedom of speech that come into play, and then you have the (human resources) policy that addresses actions of county employees,” he said.
Commissioners Chairman Dan Brummitt said if employees are not authorized to maintain the county’s social media page, he does not think they should be engaged in social media on county time.
Care agreed it is necessary to include the rule in the policy related to employees using social media on county time.
Feimster questioned scenarios the policy would be applicable to, citing an instance of a county employee in another state being fired related to calling Michelle Obama a name.
“In the last year or so, especially during election time, you had government officials who made negative comments about people in political positions …,” Feimster said. “A lot of those people were terminated from their job. Would this give the people notice that if they were to engage in the same or similar conduct they could risk losing their jobs?”
Feimster said she thinks employees should have notice that violations of the policy could be grounds for termination.
“I’m looking at in terms of making sure that they do understand that a violation of any of these policies can have very serious repercussions,” she said.
Care said he thinks an employee’s actions of posting on social media would be covered by the county’s human resources policy.
“I think primarily to say that social media posts to the extent that the First Amendment allows us to regulate, that would be covered more by our HR policy,” Care said.
Feimster questioned if the policy would mean a county employee could no longer express their opinions on county situations, such as a slow 911 call.
“A lot of people use social media everyday. That’s a part of life. That’s just a part of when they get up in the morning, on their lunch break, before the go to bed -- social media is just their best friend,” she said. “People don’t even visit each other anymore. They do it on social media. So the thing is a lot of people vent on social media.”
She asked if the policy would provide adequate notice that they could no longer make certain comments related to county services.
McMillen said the county employees would have notice.
Brummitt said the employee would have the right to complain about service personally to supervisors, but not through social media.
Care said within the realm of the First Amendment, speech from a county employee related to internal operations could be regulated.
“You don’t want people out on social media who are perceived to be insiders or somewhat of an expert getting on there alleging about liability or the causation of something so that’s something within the realm of the county of what we are allowed to regulate,” Care said, using handling of 911 calls as an example.
Policies are in place for those employees to express concerns to supervisors, he said.
Feimster questioned if a county employee makes a comment on their own personal social media page about another county employee doing a lousy job if that would mean he or she is “undermining public trust,” or could be fired.
“That person could come back and say ‘under freedom of speech I should have the right to say she’s doing a lousy job if in my opinion she’s doing a lousy job,’”she said.
Care said the policy would allow for a warning or write up and for the supervisor to discuss appropriate behavior with the employee in that instance.
With any new policy or HR policy, Care said it is incumbent for the county manager and department supervisors to enforce it reasonably.
“Something that we’ll discuss right often is what message does this send to our employees and our other employees and what’s the best way to handle it -- here’s what we can do it legally, but let’s talk about the best way to implement the disciplinary action that we do,” he said.
Feimster said her concern is if a regular county employee feels restricted to use their First Amendment right to complain or voice an opinion about the county, because he or she might be reprimanded or suspended without pay.
She used a county employee expressing dissatisfaction with the water project as an example.
Care said he doesn’t think an offhand comment in that case would be grounds for termination.
“We still have First Amendment issues to deal with, and it gets very specific on who and what you can enforce and what you can’t enforce,” he said.
He said it will be up to the county manager and department heads to “effectively implement and educate” employees about the policy.
McMillen said the policy provides direction.
Commissioner Archie Taylor said he thinks the draft of the policy is workable and a good start.
“Almost all policies are dynamic in the sense that as you run into a situations, you either add or delete something,” Taylor said.
Brummitt said based on this week’s feedback, the committee will review the policy again before final approval.
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