Human Resources And Information Technology Committee Approves Creation Of Social Media Policy To Help Combat Flooding Of Facebook Comments Section With Irrelevant Posts

The Human Resources and Information Technology Committee met 04/23/2025. Outside of electing a vice-chair, setting a meeting date and time, and establishing a designated contact person, they took up 3 action items—a request to approve changes to the Community Development Department table of organization, a request to establish a Social Media Policy, and a request to approve changes to the city’s Fringe Benefits Policy. Each of these three items were unanimously recommended for approval by the committee.

I’ve prepared a transcript of the discussion for download:

Action Items – HRIT Committee on 2025-04-23 – Transcript.PDF Download

CHANGES TO COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT TABLE OF ORGANIZATION – Community Development Director Kara Homan wanted to take an existing administrative position which is classified at grade four, elevate it to grade six and retitle it “Administrative and Accounting Services Specialist.” The change in job description would reflect that the current employee in that position is already currently doing. Additionally, the reorganization would result in this employee taking on some of the duties of the Department of Public Works accountant, Director Homan, and the Community Development Department’s deputy director. Finally, some of the lower administrative tasks currently performed by this employee would be taken over by the city’s customer service team.

Human Resources Director Jay Ratchman supported this change and stated, “I think what you will see city-wide is that a lot of clerical administrative positions are being elevated to a higher level just because the jobs change and skills change, etc.”

He said that sometimes a reorganization simply updated the job description of a position, but in this case, he viewed this as essentially eliminating the old position and creating a new position which is why they needed the approval of the committee.

Alderperson Sheri Hartzheim (District 13) asked how the Community Development Department’s budget would support this change this year and in future years. Director Homan said that they had some attrition within the department. Additionally, going forward this position would be providing some support to inspections, so a percentage of the salary could be supported by revenue generated through that function.

Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) asked if the salaries for the customer service employees would be increased because their workload was being increased. Director Homan responded that now that the city had moved its asset management program over to Tyler Munis a lot of the clerical work that used to be done manually now no longer needs to be done by them. As a result, some of their time was freed up to absorb these new tasks.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY – This policy originated in the Mayor’s Office and was prompted by an individual flooding the comment section of the city’s Facebook page with irrelevant posts that ruins the user experience and negatively impacts the city’s ability to communicate with residents. Because the city does not currently have a policy they are not able to delete or hide the flooding comments. The issue was only happening on Facebook and was not occurring on the city’s Instagram or LinkedIn pages.

The proposed policy is generally narrowly tailored and states, “The City cannot prevent, and is not responsible for, content placed by others, including offensive or disagreeable content. This means that the City will not moderate content on its social media platforms for vulgarity, profanity, hate speech, controversial, or other offensive language.” The policy goes on to say that some content may not be considered “free speech” and does not have to associated protections under the US and Wisconsin Constitutions. The city will reserve the right to delete or hide:

Spam, advertising, or promotional links to a business, service, or product.
Malware, viruses, security threats to the City network, or spamming with an overwhelming surge of messages (“flooding”).
Promoting, advocating, or perpetuating illegal activity.
Direct threats as defined by law.
Obscene content with no constitutional protection (such as graphic depictions).
Illegal activity, including copyright/trademark infringements and defamatory comments.

This policy is in line with the social media policies of many other municipalities, some of which have more stringent rules than what is laid out in Appleton’s policy.

Assistant City Attorney Darrin Glad said that he worked with the Mayor’s Office “to get something down that’s defensible, protects free speech, and clearly states the intention of the forums that were created.”

Alderperson Patrick Hayden (District 7) asked if commenters who had their comments hidden or deleted would be told that their comment had been deleted because of the policy and be provided with a link to the policy so they could review it.

Communications Manager Anindita Anaam said that the policy would be posted on the city’s website and in the “about us” section of Facebook. It was not clear whether posters would be actively and directly told why their comments had been hidden or deleted.

[Although the specifics of what prompted this were not discussed in the meeting, a brief perusal of the city’s Facebook page shows that somebody going by the name Dennis Strong has been flooding the comments section with comments and images. Some of the images seems completely unrelated to the City of Appleton. For example, he posted the criminal complaint against Judge Hannah Dugan. Some of the images relate to issues more locally. For example he’s posted a number of screenshots from news articles about Michael Froehlich the son of Outagamie County Judge (and one-time congressman) Harold Froehlich. He’s also posted some screenshots about Appleton police officers specifically. He also sometimes posts really long rambling posts about crime and corruption of government officials.

Additionally, a search of the name Dennis Strong on the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website brings up 111 records. It’s not entirely clear if all of these records are for the same Dennis Strong or if they are for multiple people by that name, but many of them are petitions by a Dennis Strong for the state of Wisconsin to carry out John Doe investigations, and the Dennis Strong in at least one of these records was listed as residing in the Mendota Mental Health Facility.

So, while I think we can all understand why city staff did not feel it was appropriate go into detail about what has prompted the creation of this Social Media Policy, as far as I can tell, those seem to be the general details.]

UPDATES TO FRINGE BENEFITS POLICY – Director Ratchman described the changes to the policy thusly, “None of the changes that you see in here are increasing benefits. There’s no additional payouts for employees. It’s just the way we administer the benefit and the way our system can administer the benefit. We want the policy to reflect exactly what the practice is.” The update provided more detail about rolling over vacation hours for full time employees versus part time employees.