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Fire Departments and Control of Social Network sites
My fire department recently adopted a policy that appears to restrict all use of the District and Department names in any way on the internet (copy of policy with names redacted follows). This was done in an apparent response to a member who created an unofficial facebook page under the department's name. What degree of control can the board/administration legally impose on members when it comes to listing an affiliation? I can see the issue about the site that gives the appearance of an "official" presence, but restricting all use of the department's name seems a bit ridiculous and may infringe on my rights under the first amendment for free speech....
Policy
USE OF THE WORDS " _______ FIRE DISTRiCT"
AND "__________ FIRE DEPARTMENT"
ON INTERNET OR OTHER COMMUMICATIONS SYSTEMS
WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION
Officers, members and employees are not permitted to utilize the words
"_____________ Fire District" and/or "_____________ Fire Department" on any Internet
sites, blogs, Facebook, My Space, or similar pages or resources set up for
communications on the Internet or on other communications systems
without the express permission of the Board of Fire Commissioners.
The _____________ Fire District is a political subdivision of the State of _______
and the _____________ Fire Department is a volunteer fire department operating
under the auspices of the _____________ Fire District to provide governmental
services to the _____________ community. As such, it is important for the Board
of Fire Commissioners to make certain that the public is not mislead into
believing that some communications resource is an official resource of the
district and or department that is authorized to provide official information
when it is not.
The only way to prevent the spread of misinformation in this regard is for
the Board to control the dissemination of information under the official
name of the district and department.
Nothing contained herein shall prevent officers, members and employees
from using their personal computer and communications resources to
participate in communications on the Internet and other communications
system as long as they do not do so under the name of the "_____________ Fire
District" and/or "_____________ Fire Department", and as long as they do not
communicate privileged or confidential district or department information
or otherwise communicate in a manner that violates this policy.
John Lottes
Sylvia Yarborough said:
Apr 7, 2011
Rommie L Duckworth
The IAFC released a Social Media model policy for the fire service. It can be found at http://www.iafc.org/displayindustryarticle.cfm?articlenbr=45790
Full disclosure: I helped craft the policy and am a big proponent of social media as a marketing tool for the fire service. It is unfortunate that one affect that social media can have is to broadcast the mistakes of a few members of emergency services who would have otherwise made the same errors on a local scale. Still bad, but not national news bad.
May 7, 2011
John Lottes
Rommie L Duckworth said:
May 9, 2011