FB censorship, U.S. official edition: Disappearing comments

February 20, 2020 8:55 AM

My Congressperson (R., House) has an official Facebook page where he posts news and opinions about government matters large and small. Constituents can leave comments, but the comments do not display--that is, X number of comments have been made, but the hover tag over the number of comments shows the message "No visible comments." Is this currently legal?

It's not a full block--people are clearly posting--but constituent feedback is being disappeared. I know that politicians' use of social media has been litigated with respect to blocking, but how about this more devious tactic? What's the current thinking, and, more to the point, is this legal right now? Can you cite any cases including suppression, rather than blocking of constituent opinion? If this is not legal, would it be appropriate to contact my state's ACLU? What makes sense as a next step? If it is legal, can you help me understand how and why?

posted by anonymous to Law & Government (6 answers total)

This may be due to a facebook setting; they recently changed comment feeds to show only comments you might be interested in by default. It's still possible to see all comments, but it requires a positive choice on your part. I suggest checking to see if that's actually what's happening in your case before deciding what to do next.
posted by dbx at 9:40 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

I wonder if the comments are held up in a moderation queue? Regardless, not displaying all the comments actually seems pretty reasonable to me - for instance I don't think the congressperson/congressperson's social media team is obligated to moderate flamewars on their Facebook page (nor would I expect them to be any good at it), and they would very likely have to moderate flamewars if they let constituents read and reply to each others' comments. They could of course block comments entirely but it might well be useful for the congressperson to receive feedback via Facebook. I would be surprised to learn that congresspeople are under any legal obligation to accurately report/publish the feedback they receive from constituents.
posted by mskyle at 10:05 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

the ruling in the president's case (knight first amendment institute v. trump) was very narrow and if i recall correctly the aoc litigation settled before going to trial.

if comments from public/constituents have been visible in the past from this congressperson's facebook page, then likely the public forum doctrine principles at issue in the president's twitter case would be applicable. if comments have never been visible, then the argument would weaken from a public forum perspective. see generally (wiki).
posted by 20 year lurk at 10:10 AM on February 20, 2020

Feedback is not being disappeared. The feedback is visible to the people who manage the page.

You are used to people using Facebook comments for discussions. They're being used for a different purpose here. They are being used as a way to contact and provide feedback to your representative. I don't see how that would be a violation of your rights.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:35 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

I suspect that you can FOIL the comments if you want. I am also pretty sure that it is not a congress member's responsibility to provide a platform for public comment. One can call the office, email the office, post a comment on your own platform, write a letter to the editor or an op-ed, etc.
posted by AugustWest at 5:08 PM on February 20, 2020

The ACLU brought a lawsuit against Maryland Gov Hogan for deleting Facebook comments and blocking users. As part of the settlement of the lawsuit, Hogan changed his social media policy to limit and clarify the reasons that comments could be deleted. I think there were a few similar lawsuits.
posted by amarynth at 7:04 AM on February 21, 2020