Why are the comments turned off on Rochester Public School's social media?
Apr. 19—Dear Answer Man: Why won't Rochester Public Schools let me comment under their posts on Facebook? It seems the comments are turned off so I can't give my opinion — good or bad — when they post news on the social media site. — My Two Cents Worth.
Dear Two Cents,
As someone dedicated to open lines of communication, I'm not a fan of turning off the comments on social media. In fact, if you look at the X, formerly known as Twitter, profile for RPS, you'll notice a distinct lack of comments there as well. Sure, you can share RPS's Facebook post or retweet its X tweets, and people can comment on that. But other than "Like"-ing on Facebook or hitting the "Heart" button on X, your input is not wanted.
That said, RPS is not alone when it comes to the kibash on its social media comments. Turning off comments is a growing trend around the country.
Mamisoa Knutson, director of communications for RPS, said the district used to have its comments turned on, but made the decision in December 2023 to turn them off.
Knutson said RPS uses its social media accounts as one of several tools to communicate with the RPS community.
"Across the district, RPS has more than 30 social media accounts monitored by a handful of people whose primary duties fall elsewhere," Knutson said. "This means that our accounts are not monitored 24/7. In the past several months, there has been an uptick in comments on our social media posts."
While most of those comments — when comments were turned on — were positive, Knutson said, others were "inappropriate or offensive, and others completely off-topic about what's being posted."
With limited time and resources available to monitor these comments, Knutson said, the district decided to turn the comments off on its social media sites.
"The public is still able to interact with each post using the reaction buttons (like, love, care, etc.), and we have provided alternate methods for the public to provide feedback, including listing the Communications Department's email address across the RPS social media accounts," Knutson said. "Members of the public are free to provide feedback to RPS on any issues or questions they may have."
Knutson said some of the problematic comments have been profane, racist, sexist, homophobic, defamatory or just plain spam that have no business being attached to the district's social media.
Now, all of this begs the question: As an entity run by elected officials — the school board — is there a First Amendment requirement to leave the comments open?
That's a tricky question. One which the courts have weighed in on.
In several cases, federal courts have ruled that government institutions cannot selectively delete some comments while allowing others. I haven't found a ruling that affects a government institution's practice of disallowing all comments.
So, while Answer Man is a friend of free speech, I certainly understand that the district does not have the time or staff to monitor its social media posts, and maybe having a different avenue for comments — the above-mentioned email or school board meetings — might be a better way of communicating.
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