If members of this group are not violating any facebook rules, is it right for the administrator to censor or remove the opinions of group members because they go against their personal beliefs? Which is it, does the group administrator represent the city she serves with this group in an offical capacity or is it a facebook group that should be titled with her personal name instead?
Obviously as others have pointed out and stated in the past, certain business owners or friends of hers are clearly off limits and not permitted to be mentioned in the group in any critical manner or in any way that may result in a discussion that she can't control the narrative. Any comments of that nature are swiftly removed.
This very topic is currently being debated by the Supreme Court.
"If a public official uses social media as a government actor in the above ways, the official cannot exclude people for having differing viewpoints. This means they can’t block users, delete specific comments, or restrict access in other ways on the basis of the viewpoints
expressed."
I see many violations of the above guidelines taking place in this (private) facebook group.
The first is Restricted Access
The second is Deleting Comments that does not break the rules of the social media platform.
The third being Topic Restrictions by the use of the (Post Approval) feature further restricting First Amendment right to free speech.
If this group was a personal facebook account and not a facebook account being ran by an elected official serving as part of the council this would not be an issue.
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