No comments on Beaufort’s Facebook? Residents push back. ‘People need to be heard’
An idea by Beaufort City Manager Scott Marshall to disable comments on the city’s official Facebook page is meeting resistance from the public and a majority of the five-person city council.
Marshall’s proposed “no comments” policy for the city’s official Facebook page was discussed for the first time at a Tuesday public work session. Currently, residents are allowed to leave comments underneath items of public interest and public safety posted by the city.
City officials are seeing an increase in the “volume, tone and complexity” of comments, Marshall says. Monitoring them is requiring too much staff time, he said, and also raising legal concerns.
The proposal comes as the city is taking criticism over several issues that have spilled into the comment section of its Facebook page. One issue that has angered residents, particularly downtown business owners, is the timing of road closures tied to a major storm drainage project in the downtown area that has disrupted traffic flow into the Bay Street business district.
Peggy Simmer, secretary of the Old Commons Neighborhood Association, urged council members to reject Marshall’s proposed “no comments” policy.
“People need to be heard,” Simmer told council members Tuesday.
What’s prompting comments?
Simmer, for one, said communication about the huge downtown drainage project has been poor.
Noting “the public is not a very forgiving public, especially right now,” she urged city officials not to remove the “right to comment” on the city’s Facebook page. A better question for the city to address, she added, may be, “why are people posting these comments?”
If the city were to eliminate comments, the Facebook page would continue but only as a source of information with the city beefing up other means of communication.
Marshall outlined the drawbacks and merits of a no comments policy in a background paper shared with council members.
Drawbacks include real and perceived loss of transparency and accessibility, missed opportunities for public dialogue and rumor control and potential political fallout.
The merits of shutting off comments, the paper adds, include reducing the burden on staff required to monitor the comments and harassment hosted on official channels.
The city currently doesn’t have enough staff to keep up with monitoring comments that sometimes become an “echo chamber” or don’t pertain to the city’s post, Marshall said.
City has legal issues to consider
A “no comments” policy on Facebook would also lower the city’s legal risk of censoring comments, the paper says.
When a municipality allows comments on its official social media page, the comment section is legally considered a “limited public forum,” according to the city. As a result, First Amendment constraints on moderating speech are triggered. That opens up the city to potential litigation if somebody thinks they were blocked for criticizing the city, the paper says.
“In recent months, the volume, tone and complexity of comment activity has increased, requiring greater staff monitoring, higher potential for allegations of selective moderation and an elevated risk that misinformation or personal attacks will appear directly beneath city posts,” Marshall wrote in a memo to council members.
Several cities have addressed similar concerns by adopting a “no comments” policy “while reducing legal and operational burdens.”
Resident: Don’t control conversation
Even before the meeting, criticism of the city possibly shutting down its Facebook page comments began showing up on that very Facebook page.
“When engagement becomes difficult, the answer can’t be to narrow the definition of engagement,” resident Angela Patel wrote. “It has to be to strengthen how it’s supported.”
Residents are frustrated and want to be heard, Patel said. Frustration comes, she said, comes from unanswered questions such as the shifting timelines of the downtown storm drainage construction project and a Freedom of Information Act breach in July when sensitive information was mistakenly released to the public.
Patel also gave a lengthy comment in person at the city’s work session, arguing the proposal to limit comments raises questions about the city’s leadership, community and accountability. In her view, it’s the city’s internal problems that need to be addressed, not the people who are pointing them out on social media.
“Leadership is not about controlling the conversation,” Patel said.
Who will make the decision?
To be clear, Marshall said, limiting Facebook comments is a council policy decision, not his.
“The ball is in your court,” Marshall said.
If the council refuses to back the no comments policy, which would require approval of a resolution, Marshall said he would need to add a full-time employee in the 2027 budget to establish a social media manager position to oversee the content.
The city also would need to develop “viewpoint-neutral moderation rules” and train staff to consistently moderate the site for defamation and threats, he said.
What council members think
Based on the stated positions of council members, it does not appear that the no comments policy will be approved.
Councilman Joss Scallate, who is opposed to shutting off the comments, said he had heard more about the Facebook comment issue than anything on the agenda.
Scallate said he views social media as another place to receive differing viewpoints that help him in his preparation. He acknowledged that some criticism found in the city’s Facebook comments isn’t relevant and can “wear you down.”
But criticism can also help the city improve, he said. Most of the criticism of the city he’s seen on social media over the past year “is stuff we could have prevented if we had been better on our end.”
Councilman Mike McFee said the pros of the comments outweigh the cons, which he noted had included death threats for council members in the past.
Mayor Phil Cromer said he does not support completely removing the comments. The comments allow the public to point out problems, he said, which can help the city improve.
Councilman Mitch Mitchell called the issue “a tough one,” with a pro for every con. He would be OK with removing the comment function.
“It kind of puts us in a neutral position of just sharing information,” Mitchell said.
Councilman Neil Lipsitz said he favored keeping comments, but it will come at the cost of having to hire another employee to manage social media, he noted.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 4:30 AM.
