How to Use the Government Social Media Comment Policy Prompt to Moderate City Accounts Fairly and Keep the Records

Running social media for a city or county is not like running a brand account. When a government agency opens a page to comments, removing a comment because it criticizes the mayor can create real legal risk, and deleted comments may still be public records. At the same time, staff do need to remove spam, threats, and posts that expose someone's home address. The answer is a written policy with content neutral categories, applied the same way every time and reviewed by counsel. The Government Social Media Comment Policy and Moderation Playbook: Viewpoint Neutral Removal Rules, Hide vs Delete vs Block, Public Records Archiving, and Official Account Boundaries for a City or County prompt drafts that policy and the moderation playbook that goes with it.

What the prompt produces

1. A forum statement that explains what the accounts are for and treats comments as a limited forum on each post's topic.
2. Content neutral removal categories, each marked for legal review.
3. A moderation decision table for real examples your staff are seeing.
4. Hide, delete, and block guidance for each platform, with an archive first rule.
5. A public records procedure for capturing removals and answering records requests.
6. An official account boundaries section for elected officials who post about official business on personal pages.

How to fill the inputs

AgencyAccounts lists the agency and every platform it uses, such as a Facebook Page, Instagram, YouTube, or a Nextdoor agency account.

RecordsRules is what your clerk or counsel told you about state public records law and the retention schedule for social media. The prompt only cites what you paste here.

AccountHolders names who has admin access and whether any officials run personal pages where they discuss official business.

CommentExamples is where you paste redacted examples of the comments that cause trouble. Real examples make the decision table useful.

Tools lists what you have to work with, such as keyword filters, an archiving service, or a ticketing system.

CurrentPolicy is any existing policy text, so the prompt can revise instead of starting over.

Reading the example output

The example is written for a sample city with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Nextdoor accounts and six problem comments:

• Criticism stays up. A comment calling the council corrupt and a profane complaint about a water rate increase are both marked KEEP, because criticism of government is exactly what the forum protects.
• Clear categories come down after archiving. A sunglasses spam link and a comment posting a code inspector's home address are archived and then removed.
• Threats are escalated, not just deleted. A comment that sounds like a threat to the parks director is preserved in full and sent to police and counsel the same day.
• Off topic is handled with care. A long national election comment on a leaf pickup post is removed only if the off topic category is approved and applied every time.
• Blocking is treated as the riskiest action. The playbook explains that blocking stops a resident from taking part at all and requires counsel approval.
• Records are kept on schedule. Every removal gets a ticket with the date, platform, comment text, category, and staff name, and is kept for the retention period the clerk gave.

Tips for better results

• Have counsel review the categories before you publish the policy, and again whenever you add a platform.
• Link the policy from every account profile so residents can see the rules before they comment.
• Train every admin on the same decision table, and review a sample of removals each month for consistency.
• Confirm that your archiving tool captures hidden and deleted comments, not just published ones.

Mistakes to avoid

• Do not remove or hide comments because they are negative, embarrassing, or rude toward officials.
• Do not use keyword filters to block criticism. Limit them to spam terms and clearly defined categories.
• Do not delete anything before it has been archived.
• Do not let staff moderate an official's personal page unless counsel has approved how that page is handled.

Who it is for

City and county communications managers, public information officers, school district and library social media staff, clerks who manage public records, and municipal attorneys who need a practical starting draft to review.

Related PromptDig links

Open the Government Social Media Comment Policy and Moderation Playbook: Viewpoint Neutral Removal Rules, Hide vs Delete vs Block, Public Records Archiving, and Official Account Boundaries for a City or County prompt and paste your accounts, records rules, and comment examples. For more prompts for social media teams, Browse more prompts. If you have a community management prompt that works for public agencies, Share a prompt.