Those who post abusive comments to the City of Seminole’s social media pages could find themselves banned from those platforms.

During its regular meeting held Tuesday evening at the Reynolds Wellness Center, the city council unanimously approved adding social media protocols to the city’s policies and procedures manual.

The proposal was put on the agenda at the request of Ward IV Councilman Chris Anson.

“These social media pages were never intended to replace contacting us through the normal channels of emails, phone calls, coming to the council meetings or whatever. They were really set up just to keep the public informed.” Anson said.

“Sometimes, it can become a place for arguing, name-calling and some pretty rough stuff. The city does not want to play host to that kind of thing. People have their own personal pages to do that,” Anson added.

The city says it is not trying to discourage people from making comments on its social media posts; they just want some ground rules in place for doing so.

“We encourage your comments on the City of Seminole’s various social media outlets, and we hope you’ll join the discussions. We do not allow comments that are off-topic, and we expect a basic level of civility. Disagreements are fine, but mutual respect is a must, and profanity or abusive language are out of bounds,” the new protocol states.

Under the new protocol, the city reserves the right to remove communications that are deemed as abusive, illegal or disruptive. The city can terminate a user’s access to its social media platforms upon any breach of the term and conditions set forth under the new policy.

The new protocol states that users may be banned, possibly indefinitely, for multiple breaches of the terms. Banned users may appeal in writing to the city manager who will, upon receipt of the appeal, have 10 working days to issue a decision, which is final and not appealable.

Social media platforms currently utilized by the city include Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.