Centerville City has plans to adopt a social media policy which will outline the use of social media by both employees and elected officials and provides guidelines for the public use of city social media accounts.

City leaders have been discussing a new policy and hammering out its various sections since February. The new document was reviewed by a subcommittee made up of department heads and the city council. The policy designates Community Services Manager Bryce King as the city’s social media manager. King will be in charge of all of the city’s social media, assisted by “social media agents,” staff members appointed by King to help him.

Under the new policy, the city’s website and social media pages will represent the official message from Centerville City. Staff members are prohibited from responding or commenting on other websites or social media pages. Third-party content may only be posted by King or his designee if it is deemed to be in the public interest, related to public safety issues or is related to an entity that receives funding or cooperation from the city, such as providing information about or advertising for the CenterPoint Theatre or, the Bountiful Davis Arts Center. Commercial content is not allowed; neither are political posts or fundraising.

Most city social media accounts are not considered a traditional “public forum” protected by the First Amendment but if public interaction is allowed on any of the accounts, the posts will be archived, retained and will be subject to the government public records law. In those instances, the account may constitute a “limited public forum” and be subject to constitutional free speech protections. All content created or posted on city social media accounts will belong to Centerville City.

Under the new policy, the city is offering social media accounts such as Facebook to elected officials on a voluntary basis. If the elected official utilizes these pages they will be considered a government record and will have posts saved on an official retention schedule.

“It's intended to allow you to have a presence on social media as an elected official so that you’re not commingling your private Facebook page with your elected official duties,” City Attorney Lisa Romney told Mayor Clark Wilkinson and members of the city council on June 6. “The advantage of that is that we can retain all of those social media posts as a public record as we’re required to by law. If you’re posting on your personal page you will be required to make sure that you get those records to us if they’re requested so we do encourage you to use those but it’s completely voluntary.”

Elected officials are encouraged not to use their personal social media accounts to conduct city business, the policy states. “When an elected official uses their personal social media accounts to conduct city business, such comments, communications, and posts create a public record.” City employees, officers and elected officials will not be allowed to retain those accounts or have access to them after they leave the city’s employment or are no longer serving in an elected capacity.

Prohibited content includes obscenity, defamation, threats, fraud, any kind of discrimination, illegal activities, Spam, commercial solicitation, malware, copyrighted material or personally identifiable information. In those instances, the social media manager will privately message the poster and inform them that the comment in question will be hidden.

On June 6 the city council voted to implement the new policy on Sept. 1. City staff and elected officials will receive training on the new policy before its implementation. The new policy will be a work in progress, Councilmember Spencer Summerhays said. “This is going to be a working document but at least it’s a good start. Will there be lessons learned?  I’m sure there will be that we’ve never thought of as we kind of continue in this new world, but I appreciate all the work on it.”