Municipal Facebook pages, along with other social media sites, in effect turn governments into publishers. City halls here and everywhere get piles of complaint letters full of vile messages and wouldn't for a second consider printing them in their newsletters or press releases. But those same comments are flowing into Web sites that are far more difficult to control and require editing after they've been published, a process that takes considerable time and makes public the very act of taking them down.
I looked at a smattering of Facebook pages from departments large and small around the country and found that the comments on most are benign to the point of being boring, such as "thanks for a good job."
Officer Ronald Gaines, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, said he blocks as many comments as possible and that there is no access to the agency's Facebook "Wall."
He said he views the site as a way to provide information about events and programs to the public, not for the public to discuss policing.
"There are plenty of ways for people to complain about police," he said.
It could be that Baltimore police invite criticism by posting controversial topics. Along with promoting feel-good programs and highlighting achievements, as most departments do, city police post breaking news about such crimes as shootings and stabbings.
Readers quickly turned the story on the horse unit into a debate over the way the city spends money, which seems reasonable enough, but that quickly led to talk about the mayor's performance, then to her indictment and then, sadly, as many things do in Baltimore, to race.
Anthony Guglielmi, the Baltimore Police Department's chief spokesman, should be commended for using emerging technology to quickly notify residents about crime and encourage input. It would be disingenuous to ignore the fact that many in the city distrust cops and think crime is out of control, and allowing critical discussion makes people believe that they are being heard.
"This is a community page," Guglielmi told me. "It's designed to let the community know what's going on in their neighborhoods. It's designed to engage dialogue. What we'd really like is for people to get engaged in fighting crime, to step up and become part of the solution.
"People are allowed to criticize their elected officials," the spokesman said. "We're not here to hinder that process."
