Off The Beat: When Are Facebook Messages Public?
In an age where everyone from lawmakers to police departments increasingly use social media to communicate with the public — and each other — what should be considered public?
Kudos to the Hawaii Office of Information Practices for posing the question. This represents the first time the open records and open meetings laws have undergone a serious review since their enactment in 1988 and 1975, respectively.
Here’s the reality. There isn’t much difference between a constituent sending a government official a “direct message” on Twitter (contained in 140 characters and seen only by the Twitter user it is sent to) and an email or letter to the city.
And while there is a difference between a government social media account and a personal one, those lines blur as soon as a public official Tweets or posts to Facebook about what is obviously government business.
If the spirit of the public records law is openness, then government officials ought to get used to the fact that many of their Twitter and Facebook communications are public.
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