Crossville Adopts Social Media Policy

Crossville City Council members have adopted a social media policy for city employees.

City Manager Greg Wood said a few issues with social media occurred during the most recent election.

“There’s also been instances where we removed comments off of the Facebook page that were inappropriate,” Wood said. “MTAS suggested very strongly that it would be a good idea to have a social media policy to back that up.”

Wood said the policy covers social media accounts for the city and the conduct of employees on their private accounts.

“Social media is not going away and we need to start developing policy to make sure that we do things consistently and know how to direct people,” Wood said.

The new policy states that an employee may not characterize him or herself as representing the City, directly or indirectly, in any online posting unless the characterization is made pursuant to a written policy of the City or at the direction of a supervisor.

The use of a City email address, job title, seal or logo, as well as reference to a social media site as the official site of the City of Crossville, shall be deemed an attempt to represent the City in an official capacity.

City Attorney Will Ridley said the state recently started encouraging municipalities across the state to adopt policies for social media.

“This isn’t a policy that was created just for Crossville,” Ridley said. “They created social media policy statewide because everybody is having similar issues.”

If an employee violates the new policy, the penalty would be based on the personnel policy and violating a city policy.