The City of Rochester is releasing some new guidelines for the use of social media by its employees. The action comes in the wake of unauthorized use of the mayor's Facebook page.
The city's new Communications Director James Smith announced the new policy in the wake of an incident in December when an unauthorized Facebook message from Mayor Lovely Warren was posted publicly.
Warren asked Smith to look into the misuse of her Facebook account, but the city's I-T people told him that there is no way to identify who accessed that account and made the unauthorized post.
Smith says the mayor wants to move forward with plans on getting her message out, and when asked if she will use her Facebook account to do that, Smith gave his answer in a broader context.
"I think, like I said, the mayor is going to take every opportunity to communicate what it is she's trying to accomplish here in City Hall with the public and we're going to go about that as it relates to social media now in a way following some guidelines and a new draft policy."
Smith will now keep tighter control of city government social media websites, and there are also new general guidelines for city workers who use their own social media accounts.
City of Rochester Social Media Guidelines
