Hoboken Council Members Question Blocking On Social Media

Hoboken NJ

04 May, 2021

3:47 PM

Description

HOBOKEN, NJ — Three members of the Hoboken City Council on Tuesday said they'll introduce an ordinance at the next meeting to stop Hoboken elected officials from blocking people from their social media accounts. The three council members sent out a press release Tuesday morning saying the ordinance will impose up to a $500 fine for each individual whom the elected official blocks on social media feeds including Facebook and Twitter. The release said the members supporting the ordinance, Phil Cohen, Michael Russo, and Emily Jabbour, "Introduced the ordinance after receiving complaints from residents who for years have been blocked on Twitter and Facebook by Councilmember Mike DeFusco." A Hoboken mayoral election looms exactly six months from this week, and Mayor Ravi Bhalla is up for re-election. DeFusco opposed him in the last race four years ago. Cohen and Jabbour are allied with Bhalla. When asked why the council decided to bring the matter up now, since the release noted that it's happened for years, Cohen said that the matter reached a "tipping point" when people questioned why DeFusco rented out his Airbnb condo 23 times and traveled to COVID hotspots. READ MORE: Hoboken Councilman Rented Out Airbnb Unit 23 Times Cohen said the ordinance would not apply to an account used "purely" for personal posts. "For a purely personal account, there would be no issue with blocking someone," he said. But the line may sometimes get blurred, as the city does not issue council members social media accounts or provide city-run staff for the pages, and the members create their own. In a recent case involving the Maine governor's Facebook page, "The governor's official state website linked to the Facebook page until July 2017, when the ACLU sent LePage a letter demanding he stop deleting comments," according to a news account. "The governor's office had referred news outlets to the Facebook page, which in 2017 featured video addresses from LePage during the three-day government shutdown." The proposed Hoboken ordinance says, "A Public Official's social media presence need not be an official account controlled by the city, but instead may be a social media presence owned and operated entirely by the public official." But it also notes, "The public official's social media presence must utilize the online social media platform for purposes of engaging in official duties and engagement with the public in order to fall within this chapter." The ordinance does make an exception for an unfortunate situation that arises on social media often, particularly during Hoboken political season: "except in the instance of targeted harassment as specified by the respective social media platform." DeFusco said Tuesday that political opponents have, in the past, used his page "to post false, personal attacks against me." He said he has since unblocked accounts he had blocked before, but "I reserve the right to delete posts that violate the comment policy posted publicly on my Facebook page. Social media can be an incredibly toxic place and I hope that my opponents can be more mindful of the importance of keeping discussions about local politics and government civil and informative." He said, "My social media is not taxpayer funded and has nothing to do with city business, and I use it to connect with my constituents and inform them about important things happening in Hoboken." DeFusco noted in an article Tuesday that he recently formed a committee to explore running for mayor. The press release noted, "Numerous court decisions have affirmed that elected officials are infringing on the First Amendment rights of their constituents by prohibiting free speech on social media feeds, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Eighth Circuit, along with several other courts. In a recent friend of the court brief to the Fourth Circuit, the ACLU stated: 'When a government actor bans critics from speaking in a forum, it silences and chills dissent, warps the public conversation, and skews public perception. When only critics are blocked from viewing information or petitioning the government for services, the restriction operates as a punishment for holding political viewpoints that the government actor disfavors.' " A CBS story about the ordinance quoted a former resident who was blocked. Want to be the first in your neighborhood to get breaking news alerts, or a daily morning newsletter of news in your town? You can sign up for Patch alerts and/or a free a daily digest of news here: Sign up and choose your preferences. Got news? Email [email protected]. Got photos? Please include express written permission from the photographer for us to use them. To be the first to get free news alerts with breaking stories in your town, or to get a free local newsletter each morning, sign up for Patch breaking news alerts or daily newsletters.