Descrição

Does the city have a social media/First Amendment policy relative to archiving of SCF posts? Archiving, as opposed to just closing, makes the post unviewable. My concern is that there is no objective rhyme or reason to what messages are archived or when. Some messages remain up for years. Others last a day. Archiving seems to happen by whim to posts expressing certain viewpoints, or from certain people, and not others. The problem is that a government official selectively making certain posts unviewable, while leaving others up, is about as clear an example of an actionable First Amendment violation as you can get. A governmental entity, like the City of Malden simply cannot do that. The reason I'm saying this is that as a taxpayer, I'd rather not have to see us incur legal fees and the possible cost of a judgement or settlement. I also value and respect the First Amendment, which is in fact being violated, even if that isn't the intent. There MUST be an objective policy/standard. Otherwise, you simply may not archive posts. Compliance with the First Amendment literally requires it. Please address this before a judge has to do it for us. The practice may also violate the MA public records access law. But that is another discussion. Thank you.