Why a council has disabled Facebook comments

Shropshire Council has disabled comments for the majority of its Facebook posts – to the confusion of many people.

Since the beginning of September, only a handful of posts have had comments turned on, with the vast majority having them disabled.

This has included updates on local services, public information, and community announcements. At the time of writing, only one of the council’s five posts on Thursday (December 18) had comments enabled – advising people on which service is best to help when they are ill.

However, for other posts – such as one about Shrewsbury once again being named as Britain’s number one high street by The Telegraph – Shropshire Council “limited who could comment” on the post.

The previous day, the local authority posted about flood warnings and alerts in force in the county. Although people were able to comment on that post, one seemingly referred to the issue saying: “Shut the floodgates! Shut the comment section down!”

“Social media is now one of the main ways local people communicate with their council,” said Richard Hamilton, head of communications at the North Shropshire Conservative Association.

“Disabling comments removes a vital channel for residents to ask questions and hold the council to account. Transparency and open dialogue are fundamental to healthy local democracy, and we are concerned that recent changes undermine that principle.”

He added: “We understand the pressures involved in managing busy social media pages, but simply shutting down public engagement is not the answer.

“Residents deserve the opportunity to be heard.”

Councillor Heather Kidd, leader of Shropshire Council, said: “We absolutely value open, respectful debate and the public’s right to question the council about decisions and day-to-day services. That commitment to transparency sits at the heart of how Shropshire Council communicates with residents.

“To this end, there are lots of ways that people can get in touch with us and report a problem should they need to.

“Over recent months, our corporate Facebook page has often been overwhelmed with comments on many of our posts, some of which have been abusive and have raised safeguarding issues by referencing children and families. This is simply not acceptable.

“Many of these comments haven’t required a response, but each one still needs to be read and this takes time.

“It’s because of this that we made the decision to disable comments on the majority of our Facebook posts, allowing us to focus our limited resource on essential services.

“We will however keep this approach under active review. And, if and when capacity allows, we will enable comments on posts where it is safe and practical to moderate.”