The town of 3,000 people, just west of Chattanooga, passed a resolution on Dec. 9 that applies to anyone professionally connected to South Pittsburg—including employees, volunteers, and contractors—from “publicly discuss[ing] information about other employees and/or volunteers not approved for public communication” on social media, according to the official resolution. It also warns against writing anything on a personal Facebook (FB) page or on Twitter (TWTR) that might be considered defamatory or libelous. People “should have no expectation of privacy whatsoever,” the policy states.
“The first thing everyone wants to say is, ‘I can’t post anything on Facebook,’” the town’s commissioner, Jeff Powers, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “Well, you can. Just not [anything] that sheds a negative light on any person, entity, board, or things of that nature.”
“It is not a new concept,” South Pittsburg Mayor Jane Dawkins wrote in a Facebook message to Bloomberg Businessweek. Dawkins said the policy was mostly designed to stop people from posting employees’ salary information or police officers’ schedules on Facebook. “This lets people know that the officer’s spouse and children are home alone or that no one is at home,” she explained. (The South Pittsburg Police Department doesn’t appear to have much of a Facebook page, and it’s unclear if officers’ schedules have ever been posted online.) She also said that while she voted for the policy, “I did not commission this. Commissioner Jeff Powers did.” Powers did not respond to an interview request.
