Nanaimo silences Facebook feedback after 'nasty comments'

The City of Nanaimo has deactivated its Facebook page and may remove it, if it cannot find a way to stop people from posting abusive comments, the city's chief administrative officer says.

Nanaimo council approved a move to hide comments and temporarily deactivate the pagein a closed-door vote on Monday.

TracySamra said she initiatedthe responseafter someone posted racist, derogatoryand obsceneremarks in response tovideos posted on the page last week thatfeatured city employees.

"If they have comments that violate the human rights code or in any way defame city employees, I have a policy in place that I have to take steps to protect them," Samra said.

Coun. Gord Fuller voted in favour of the move. He said the Facebook page is meant to provide the public with community information.

"Unfortunately, some of the people in political chat groups started going on and commenting on the information that the city had and making nasty comments," Fuller said.

"There's ways to contact people appropriately and ways to do it inappropriately, and we just want to remove the inappropriate."

While the Facebook comments are hidden for now, Samra said city officials are still considering whether the social media page can be managed without incurring highcosts for monitoring comments.

Staff made it clear they don't want to be the ones responsible for monitoring and reporting on Facebook activity,she said.

The offending commenters are a small group of less than 40 people, she said, but she worries about the potential backlash, if they are personallyblocked from the page.

"I have staffing pressures," Samra said. "I don't think it's the best use of our tax resources to be hiring someone to monitor a Facebook chat page after hours, when I need workers in other places."

Mayor, council not on Facebook

Samraquestions the need for Nanaimo to have a Facebook page, because information is available on its Twitter page or by email or phone.

Samrasaiddoesn't have a Facebookaccount herself, nor dothe Nanaimo mayor and councillors.

"So, if the community wants to engage with mayor and council, which it should and it does and it can, it's not taking place on our Facebook page," she said.

With files from Michael Tymchuk