A Chatham County resident who believes his posts on Sheriff Mike Roberson’s Facebook page led a new department policy to disallow or limit comments says his First Amendment rights have been violated.
The policy change prompts questions about the intersection of the First Amendment and social media.
A Facebook user going by the pen name of John Miller has commented dozens of times on the official Facebook page of the Chatham County Sheriff since May. Many of the comments questioned whether Roberson was adequately performing his job and why there were so many vacancies within his department.
“When will everyone wake up and see the issues with the current sheriff?” read one of Miller’s comments in response to a post by Roberson about Detention Officer Week. “This post makes me sick.”
The original post, from Roberson’s personal page, praised the county’s detention facilities for receiving high marks on its state inspections.
“This week our detention staff got their 10th ‘No Deficiency’ report during State Inspection!” Roberson’s post said. “This is a huge accomplishment and testament to the level of commitment and professionalism inside our facility.”
“They are some dedicated officers, but the sheriff is not a good leader and needs to go,” read another of Miller’s comments on Roberson’s post.
Miller spoke to the News + Record on the condition of anonymity, saying he feared using his real identity in Facebook comments or publicly would make him subject to intimidation and the risk of losing his law enforcement job.
Miller said he was disappointed with Roberson’s performance as sheriff and his comments on Roberson’s page reflected that. He claims he was blocked by the sheriff’s Facebook page in early July, prior to the office announcing social media policy changes on July 7. Sheriff’s Office Attorney Rik Stevens, however, said Miller was never on a list of blocked individuals.
“Each of our social media pages is intended to be a platform for the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s Office to better communicate with the public about matters of general public safety and our various programs here at the Sheriff’s Office,” Stevens said in an email exchange with Miller shared with the News + Record. “When our agency accounts were first created, we never anticipated the amount of public interest in our pages and never envisioned that the platforms might be used as a public forum.”
The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office official Facebook Page, Chatham County Sheriff’s Office-NC, currently has 10,000 followers. This page, however, differs from Sheriff Roberson’s personal account — Sheriff Mike Roberson — which has 4,900 followers. The personal account is used for the sheriff to post his own photos and other information he deems important; until recently, comments were still allowed but are now, like the official department page, limited.
The Sheriff’s Office’s page, Stevens said, is used to share important updates from local government departments and other official information from the sheriff and his staff. Until early July, posts by Roberson or Sheriff’s Office staff typically received dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of likes and shares.
The Sheriff’s Office echoed Stevens’ sentiments in its announcement of social media policy changes. The office said the decision was made as part of a natural evolution of audience engagement over time.
“Our relationship with our audience has developed organically over time, evolving in new and exciting ways with each passing week,” the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page said on a July 7 post announcing it was turning off commenting. “Although we love reading your encouraging feedback and words of support, we have decided that the commenting feature will be restricted for future posts to encourage visitors in need to utilize the ‘direct messaging’ feature instead.”
The post said the office will now receive social media feedback through direct messages on Facebook Messenger because comments on the page “can easily be missed or go unanswered.”
“It is our hope that converting to a direct message response system will ‘turn down the volume’ just enough for victims or those in need of assistance to be heard loud and clear,” the post said.
Sara Pack, the chief public information officer for the Sheriff’s Office, told the News + Record the department is “constantly learning and adapting our policies and practices based on our own review of internal processes and input we receive from others,” and that the department wants to not lose its “personal touch” with the community.
“Conversations about the advantages of promoting direct messaging as a means of connecting more meaningfully with residents had taken place long before July 7th,” Pack said. “However, when Mr. Miller contacted our office via email, he shared some frustration with Facebook’s limitations and how it impacted him personally. During the decision-making process, his story, among others, was taken into account along with our staff’s previous discussions and user experiences. Such changes are always carefully weighed and evaluated prior to implementation, and we are grateful to Mr. Miller for expressing his feelings and providing us with another point-of-view to ponder before taking action. We hope he will continue to reach out to us with any future concerns as we appreciate constructive feedback and the opportunity to grow and improve.”
Miller said he believes the new policy is a “disaster waiting to happen” because the same issues of unresponsiveness and missed messages are likely to occur.
“The new policy was made because of my comments and pointing this out to Rik Stevens, I mean that much is obvious,” Miller said. “It’s apparent [the sheriff] just likes to get himself photographed, he has an image to uphold and he will protect that at all costs.”
Miller said his comments toward the sheriff were never vulgar but rather represented negative opinions of the job the sheriff is doing. Despite what Stevens said, Miller said he still believes he was blocked by the Sheriff’s Office, which would be cause for viewpoint discrimination — a violation of the First Amendment protections provided to citizens when criticizing public officials.
According to an analysis by the UNC School of Government, previous U.S. Supreme Court cases — Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia v. Trump, and Davison v. Randall — have held that government officials violated the First Amendment rights of citizens by blocking them based on the content of their comments. The analysis finds that these cases deem social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, constitute public forums.
In this case, Miller could not be blocked by the official account of the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office simply because the office does not agree with his comments.
“We have, in the past, blocked some individuals from posting to the Sheriff’s Facebook page for reasons that did not relate to speech that we deemed to be protected under the First Amendment,” Stevens said in an email to Miller. He said previous blocking was done primarily because of unsolicited posts attempting to sell goods/services. “Notice, however, that you are not (and never were) on this list of blocked individuals. At this time, no individuals are on the ‘blocked user’ list.”
Beth Soja, a First Amendment attorney with Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych in Raleigh, said deleting comments on official government office posts isn’t allowed without credible threats.
Soja’s work focuses on government transparency and freedom of information, especially the North Carolina open meetings and public records laws. In an interview with the News + Record, she said removing specific comments or blocking users based on opinion alone would constitute a First Amendment violation.
“Removing comments based on viewpoint is not permissible,” Soja said via email. “But the question of whether a public official can wholesale prevent commenting under these circumstances — when they have allowed it previously — is less settled; however, this is certainly less problematic because they are no longer engaging in viewpoint discrimination. It seems what they are trying to do is convert their Facebook page from a public forum to a pure vehicle for government speech.”
Soja said the move by the Sheriff’s Office to turn off all commenting, especially with clear communication about the change in nature of the page, is likely permissible under the law. She added, however, the change from allowing comments to blocking them makes the situation a bit murkier.
Amanda Martin, an attorney with SMVT who has argued First Amendment and libel cases in North Carolina for three decades, agreed with Soja’s analysis. She said it is probably legal to change the nature of the page.
One of the justifications for the change provided by Stevens and the Sheriff’s Office was that large accounts with more than 5,000 followers already had limited comments and because of Facebook company policies. He said the current page has more than 10,000 followers so the comments are already limited.
“What we found in reviewing account settings is that the ability to post comments may have been restricted to those 5,000 unique users,” Stevens said. “Which presents an obstacle which cannot be amended without making significant changes to the account. Again, this is a limitation imposed by Facebook itself, not the Sheriff’s Office.”
Facebook’s actual policy, however, differs from this analysis.
“You or the person you want to add have reached the friend limit. You can have up to 5,000 friends on Facebook,” the company’s terms of service say. “If you need to connect with more than 5,000 people, you can change your personal account to a Facebook Page.”
The Chatham County Sheriff’s Office account had already changed into a Facebook Page, rather than a personal account.
“I think a public official who did want to actually engage with the public and not be limited to 5,000 participants does have an avenue to do that,” Martin told the News + Record. “Someone choosing the more limited structure does not want to have wide audience engagement.”
Regardless of the legality of the situation, Miller said he believes restricting the ability of the public to comment on a local official’s platform is wrong.
“[Roberson] is trying to control the narrative,” Miller said. “I’m being honest … He’s grasping at straws and just doesn’t have the longevity. He acts like a politician, not a law enforcement officer.”
Those sentiments are widely shared on Facebook by his opponent in the upcoming November election. Marcus Globuschutz, a 28-year law enforcement veteran, won Chatham County’s Republican sheriff primary in May.
“I think it’s shameful that the Sheriff’s Office has cut off the citizens from communication,” Globuschutz told the News + Record. “It’s oppressing their First Amendment rights to free speech. As sheriff, I would never allow that to happen.”
Globuschutz said the policy change is one reason to “change the whole atmosphere of the Sheriff’s Office.”
“We need to create an atmosphere where people are willing to come to work and they feel supported by their sheriff,” he said.
On July 14, Globuschutz utilized his campaign website to post a blog post entitled “Defender of your Rights!!!” The post was made in direct response to the current Sheriff’s Office’s changes in social media policy. In the post, he said Roberson does not respect the First Amendment. The post was originally shared on Globuschutz’s Facebook page on July 10.
“I came to this conclusion: Sheriff Mike Roberson can’t answer the tough questions from the public,” Globuschutz wrote in a blog post. “Instead of being able to explain why there are so many vacancies, why he is spending our tax dollars so freely and why he is allowing the drug dealers to peddle the poison in our neighborhoods; he cuts off the public’s voice.”
The post goes on to cite statutes in North Carolina law that establish social media as a public forum and calls out Roberson for hindering free speech. Globuschutz said he views being sheriff as the first line of defense for Chatham County’s constitutional rights, including free speech.
Miller said he understands using a pen name does diminish the credibility of his previous comments and his story, but he believes there are broader implications than just Facebook.
“I posted all this stuff because the true story is not getting out there,” Miller said. He said his ultimate goal was to inform the public about the department’s problems. “The sheriff needs to be gone. It starts at the top, and the top is currently a mess.”
Pack says Roberson remains committed to serving the county and that the department is responsive.
“Overall, feedback and response to the change has been very positive,” she said. “We have received dozens of messages from residents in need of assistance or posing genuine questions about services, employment opportunities, and more. With direct messaging, we can communicate and respond to residents one-on-one to ensure they receive appropriate care and attention.”
Reporter Ben Rappaport can be reached at brappaport@chathamnr.com or on Twitter @b_rappaport.