Hancock passed a town social media policy with guidelines for any social media account associated with a department, board, or committee in the town, and also outlined the responsibilities of town employees on their personal social media accounts.
The Hancock Select Board signed the policy at their Sept. 14 meeting. The action wasn’t prompted by any specific event, Chair Laurie Bryan said, but more in an effort to update Hancock’s personnel manual, which previously only covered email and telephone calls. A number of towns are enacting similar policies, Town Administrator Jonathan Coyne said.
All town social media efforts will be primarily focused on providing information on town services and programs, according to the policy, which also lays a framework for the kinds of comments that may be deleted from threads on town social media accounts. Unacceptable content includes any comments that are unrelated to the original topic, threats, comments supporting or opposing a political campaign or ballot initiative, information that might compromise the safety and security of public systems, encouragement of illegal activity, profane or obscene content, or anything that perpetuates discrimination by race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, or national origin.
“Comments made by individual employees from their personal accounts are personal expressions and not Town representations,” the policy said, and no employee may use town equipment, uniforms, or the interior of town buildings for any personal social media postings, and may not use paid town time to create or publish personal social media posts.