GEORGIA, USA — In this digital age, you'll see companies, businesses and all sorts of agencies interact with people online through social media every day.
That includes local law enforcement pages, like the Monroe County Sheriff's Office and Bibb County Sheriff's Office.
Some people wonder if specific rules apply to public pages as they do on private accounts.
Like former Bibb County Sheriff Officer Brad Grubbs.
"A couple of years ago, I resigned from the sheriff's office to move to Pennsylvania with my fiance and get married," Grubbs said.
Grubbs explained he keeps tabs on the Bibb County Sheriff's Office through its social media page after he worked there for a few years.
Facebook even marked him as a "Top Fan" of the sheriff's office page, which its moderators are in control of.
He admits a lot of his comments are critical feedback.
"I decided to dedicate my Facebook page this election season to pointing out the issues inside the agency and why there needs to be a change with the sheriff," Grubbs said.
On Valentine's Day, he made a critical comment about the sheriff's office under this post, but you can't see it unless you're friends with Grubbs on Facebook, he explained.
"I noticed that there was nobody responding to it, and that raised some red flags to me," Grubbs said.
Another person posted in a Monroe County Facebook group that their comment was pending review under the Monroe County Sheriff's Office page.
Question:
Can government social media pages block accounts?
Our sources are:
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
Monroe County Sheriff Brad Freeman said, "We check the comments, and every now and then, you can get a fairly decent lead on a Facebook post."
Freeman said his office uses Facebook, Instagram and their app to communicate with his community.
"We do filter out, I wouldn't call them comments, but spam," Freeman said.
As scams continue to rise, Freeman said his office tries to nip the issue in the bud if their moderators see anything suspicious posted on the official law enforcement page.
"We certainly don't wanna keep a link on there that's basically gonna rip somebody off," Freeman explained.
"Other than that, we hardly filter out anything. because it's freedom of speech," the sheriff said.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also cited the First Amendment in a ruling from a similar case in 2019.
In its decision, the court wrote, "The government engages in viewpoint discrimination when it denies access to a speaker solely to suppress the point of view he espouses."
"If you wanna criticize something that we've done, feel free. It's your right to criticize us, so we basically leave it on there," Freeman said.
For comments that may be "pending review," Freeman said, oftentimes, Facebook moderators censor offensive language; however, the sheriff said his office does not actively try to prevent people from posting comments on their public page.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Office guidelines can be found here.
We can Verify: No, government pages cannot block your account on social media.