A free speech lawsuit playing out in Virginia has prompted Lafayette to examine new policies for how its city leaders navigate both their personal and public online presence — a line that has become increasingly blurred amid the medium’s rise in recent years, officials say.
Lafayette spokeswoman Debbie Wilmot and City Attorney Dave Williamson will present draft language surrounding potential policy guidelines sometime next month.
Some of the proposed language includes rules regarding the need for officials to separate their private and public accounts as well as what they can discuss online, draft language suggests.
“We felt like there are always questions about what (elected officials) can and can’t we do online,” Wilmot said, “so the city attorney and I felt it was a good idea to help give council some direction.”
It’s unclear if similar policy exists among surrounding Boulder County communities such as Boulder and Longmont, though Louisville and Erie both contain social media guidelines.
Lafayette does not currently have any such regulations in place.
The process was born from a lawsuit late last summer in Loudoun County, Va., where a federal district court ruled that a local elected official violated the free speech rights of a constituent when she banned someone from her Facebook page.
The court held that the county itself was liable for the claim because the manner by which the elected official maintained her Facebook page constituted “official action,” according to Williamson.
The district’s decision in the Loudoun County case is currently being appealed.
Williamson said that the proposed policy would not keep elected officials from using personal social media accounts, but rather illustrates certain limitations of social media use in their official capacities.
The proposal would also include regulations dictating that no council member could limit a citizen’s ability to view or post comments on their official social media pages — such as in the aforementioned case in Virginia — as well as understand that anything posted or communicated through those official accounts would be subject to Colorado open records law.
Council members must also identify themselves by name and position title and use their city email address when participating in social media websites in their official capacities.
The language would need to be signed into city code, and an official vote on the proposed policies is likely to come sometime in the next couple of months.
Anthony Hahn: 303-473-1422, hahna@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/_anthonyhahn