Mahomet PD temporarily deactivates Facebook over ‘defamation’ concerns

Danny Connolly
·1 min read

MAHOMET, Ill. (WCIA) — People who have been searching for the Mahomet Police Department’s page may have wondered why it seemingly disappeared for a few days.

The Mahomet Police Department wrote in a post that they temporarily deactivated their page as a recommendation of legal advice. The page went back up Monday evening.

The reason for the temporary takedown according to the first post back is that defamatory comments were posted repeatedly in the comments section of their posts. Mahomet Police Chief Michael Metzler told WCIA several comments made online about personnel were not true, specifically the story on the department’s first female Deputy Police Chief.

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“While MPD and the Village of Mahomet encourage discussion and comments on the information we share on this page, we cannot and will not condone libelous comments that defame our followers, community members, or our employees,” part of the post reads. “Defamation per se is illegal in Illinois.”

Police officials wrote that administrators on the Facebook page will remove any libelous comments from view.

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