CANTON – The communications and technology committee of the canton’s municipal board presented its latest draft of the social media guideline to the full board of trustees at its meeting on April 19.
The social media policy has been in the works for several months.
Deputy Mayor Anna M. Sorensen said the committee plans to recirculate its draft with the board as it will be up for discussion at the next May 4 town and village councils meeting.
According to the draft policy, the goal is to have a cohesive online presence across city, department, and board committee social media sites, with the city’s website — cantonny.gov — being the primary online presence.
Cantonny.gov is managed by the Offices of Town and Village Clerks with support from the Communications and Technology Committee.
Town and village departments manage multiple Facebook accounts.
There is a general municipal Facebook account for town and village, while the police and leisure departments and the historian maintain their own social media accounts.
The policy states that all websites should be free and that content posted on community social media sites should also be available on cantonny.gov whenever possible.
“Social media posts linking to content on the municipal website should link to where that information can be found. Information published on the home page of the municipal website must be reviewed and approved by the officials in charge,” the policy reads.
If other departments or committees wish to establish departmental social media accounts, they must obtain supervisor and mayor approval through the Communications and Technology Committee.
These social media accounts are for informational purposes only.
Employees who post on social media must provide “the highest standards of decency in language and content and follow city, village and state policies and regulations.”
Departments are expected to keep tabs on their accounts and while this is one way of communicating with the public, comments need to be monitored.
The policy includes a list of topics that are not allowed, including:
• Comments unrelated to the original topic, including arbitrary or incomprehensible comments;
• Comments related to, support for, or opposition to any political campaign or electoral activity;
• defamatory or personal attacks;
• profane content and language;
• Content that promotes, promotes, or perpetuates discrimination based on race, creed, color, age, religion, sex, marital status, welfare status, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual identity or orientation;
• Sexual content or links to sexual content;
• threats to individuals or organizations;
• Business advertisements, including but not limited to advertisements for businesses or products for sale;
• conduct that violates federal, state, or local law;
• encouragement of illegal activities;
• Information that may compromise the security of the public or public systems;
• Comments that may cause an invasion of privacy; or
• Content that violates any legal property right of another party.
The Communications and Technology Committee will regularly review each site to ensure it is compliant with the policy.
The town and village council will discuss the policy on May 4 at 6 p.m. in the courtroom at 60 Hauptstrasse.
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