The Henry County Board of Commissioners is set to vote July 18 on whether to adopt a new social media ordinance, part of a plan by county officials to increase the government’s social media presence over the next few months.
Several county departments such as police, fire and parks are already active on Facebook, and the county’s communications department posts on Twitter from time to time. The new ordinance would set guidelines for citizen engagement, mostly to guard against obscenity and other violations that would lead to a citizen’s comment being removed from a social media thread.
Officials stressed that this was not to prevent citizens from commenting but to provide advance notice so a violator of the ordinance could not claim a First Amendment violation on the part of the county.
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