Robert Fisher
Staff Reporter
PEMBROKE – The County of Renfrew is changing the way it interacts with community members via a new social media comment and moderation policy.
Chief Administrative Officer Craig Kelley, in a report to the Committee of the Whole, Corporate Services, noted that the township has experienced an increase in the number of negative and hostile comments on its social media platforms, increasing frequency of people posting misinformation and repetitive disruptive comments, an increase in personal attacks against staff and members of council, and an increase in staff time to monitor comments on its digital media channels.
Kelley’s report states, “While the county supports respectful public dialogue, social media comment sections have increasingly become a channel for conflict escalation and misinformation, rather than constructive discussion.
Staff recommended a hybrid approach to digital communication channels which would allow comments on posts intended to, “generate positive community dialogue,” and disable comments on “higher risk” posts or those that generally result in more conflict, misinformation or negativity.
“Social media can be a tricky thing,” said Kelley in his remarks to the committee. Social media channels are not an official response or inquiry platform for the county and staff have been spending significant time trying to respond to inquiries.
“I’m certainly aware,” began Coun. Michael Donohue, “that social media has been likened to a cesspool.” Despite that, Donohue raised concerns about some content that staff proposed to deny commenting, including posts about budgets and property tax levies, on the basis that feedback on financial matters is to be expected. Staff proposed eight categories of posts where comments would be turned off. Donohue suggested a narrower scope of post types be included in the no comment category.
Kelley used the recent example of the county budget. The county posted a message about passage of the budget. The post received several comments referring to the Town of Renfrew and others insulting staff and elected officials.
“(T)hese are the things that are continually running down the mental health of staff, of council members …”
Warden Jennifer Murphy noted there can also be issues if some comments are removed and others aren’t, with commenters making complaints of censorship.
Coun. David Mayville expressed concern that social media comment threads sometimes take on a ‘life of their own’ which can be difficult to deal with. Coun. Rob Weir followed up to agree with Mayville and suggest comments be turned off on all county social media posts unless there is a specific reason not to.
“Somebody’s going to find the negative,” in anything the county puts out, “and somebody’s going to run with it,” said Weir.
Social media is unique compared to other communication channels like newspapers or radio or other so-called traditional methods, suggested Coun. Neil Nicholson. Those channels don’t provide for the immediate feedback or a back-and-forth interaction.
“(W)e can’t allow the discussion to take place on this forum, in these forums, unless we’re prepared to manage it,” he offered.
Donohue followed up his earlier comments to say, if the choice a binary yes/no to allowing comments, he favours no comments on any county social media posts to take the more conservative approach.
Committee moved to sever the social media portion from a larger motion. The members then voted to send the policy back to staff to rewrite and disallow commenting on any county social media post.
robert@thevalleygazette.ca
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