Beaufort won’t ban social media comments, but residents will need to mind what they say
The Beaufort City Council on Tuesday adopted a new social media comments policy that will allow the city to remove attacks and discriminatory communications — but the City Council, concerned about being overzealous, made last-minute changes that tempered what was originally suggested by the city’s administration.
The new policy has a list of standards. For example, comments must be respectful, free of personal attacks and non-discriminatory based on religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability or any other protected status, and non-commercial.
Under the enforcement section of the new policy, comments violating those standards may be hidden or removed. Users who repeatedly violate the policy may also be restricted from commenting on city social media pages.
The policy doesn’t go as far as City Manager Scott Marshall would have liked.
Last month, Marshall proposed banning comments altogether because he said misinformation, uncivil discourse, spam and content unrelated to municipal business was growing and making it difficult for the city to monitor the information. He noted the city social media accounts were meant primarily to disseminate information, not operate as public forums.
Social media use is increasing so much, and requiring so much staff time, that hiring a full-time employee to manage the accounts will be needed if the comments are allowed to continue, he said.
But four of the five City Council members, along with a few residents, raised concerns about killing comments. They noted the importance of social media as a means for the public to have a say in the business of local government.
As an alternative, Marshall developed a social media comments policy that allowed comments but established what he says are reasonable standards and clarifies the informational purposes of the city’s social media platforms. That plan was presented to the city council Tuesday.
“The city has a legitimate governmental interest in establishing reasonable, content-neutral and viewpoint-neutral standards governing public interaction on its official social media platforms,” the city’s resolution creating the policy says in part.
Council steps in
Council members tempered Marshall’s social media comments policy with some last-minute changes.
At the suggestion of City Councilman Josh Scallate, City Council members struck a standard included in the policy that said comments must be “reasonable and relevant to the post or topic of discussion.”
“That leaves a lot of room for subjectivity,” Scallate said.
The rest of the council agreed, and it was removed from the policy.
Scallate said he also was concerned the city was being overzealous and may suppress valid discourse with the proposed enforcement measures. He suggested adding an appeals process and the council added it to the policy.
Voting for the resolution with the amendements were Scallate, Mike McFee, Neil Lipsitz and Mayor Phil Cromer. Councilman Mitch Mitchell, who was traveling, was not at the meeting. Mitchell said last month that he didn’t have a problem with Marshall’s original plan to eliminate Facebook comments.
Censorship concerns
Graham Trask, a resident and property owner in the city, said he viewed the social media comment policy as the first step in censoring the public. He called hiring a full-time employee to manage social media “ludicrous.”
“I think social media is a good way to get information out, and it’s a good way to gauge public input,” Trask said. “I’m concerned this city doesn’t like to hear it.”
Cities across the state are creating similar social media policies, Mayor Cromer said. “We’re not breaking new ground here,” Cromer said.
Social media comments and messages are subject to applicable public records laws, the policy notes. The policy also recommends the public consider other means of communicating with city officials including email, phone, commenting at city meetings or direct messages via social media accounts.
This story was originally published February 11, 2026 at 10:48 AM.
