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How many citizens voted in the last city council election?

If the City creates a blog, or Facebook page, or a Twitter account, is the information that you post part of the records that municipalities are required to keep according to the Texas Public Information Act?

Is the information available elsewhere? 

If the City creates a blog, and a citizen makes a comment on it, is that comment part of the official public testimony?

Is it a substitute for a formal statement in a public hearing process?

Are your managers already using social media research as part of the hiring process?

Have managers been given guidance on whether this is acceptable or not?

Is there a difference in how we treat various candidates – for example, is it permissible to research a police officer candidate’s presence on social media, or a librarian candidate, or a department head candidate?

Does the candidate know in advance that his or her presence on various social media sites might be used as part of the hiring decision?

Who should do the social media research - the hiring manager, or H.R., or someone else?

Has the candidate given permission? Must permission be granted?

Can a candidate possibly sue us for discrimination if he or she believes we declined to hire based on the fact that we saw something we didn’t like on a social media page? Examples: sexual orientation, evidence of heavy drinking.

Are social media websites inherently more dangerous than other types of websites?

If the City creates a presence on social media, some people will need to be given access by IT. How can we ensure that this freedom will not be misused? Who will get this access?

If a City Councilmember starts a blog, or a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, might it produce a “walking quorum” if public business is discussed, and other city councilmembers post a comment or response?

If a City Councilmember reads the blog or Facebook postings of another city councilmember, does it constitute “discussion in advance of the decision” because you are now aware of their position on an issue, even if you don’t comment on it?

Is this different from a guest editorial in the newspaper?

Who are the people who should be involved in the planning process for involvement with social media? City Attorney Records Retention staff Human Resources Director Public Information Officer IT

How knowledgeable are they about social media?

City staff should be encouraged to attend seminars on social media aimed at addressing these issues for their profession or specialty Records, IT, City Attorneys, HR, etc.

Key City staff should be encouraged to learn how to use the basic tools so that they can become familiar with them and can address these issues.

If deemed necessary, records can be retained by taking screenprints of the city’s postings

The City Attorney should advise on whether city councilmembers should be told not to post on each others’ pages

City councilmembers can refuse to be “friends” on Facebook

One can “block” people on Twitter

New tools are cropping up Tweetake.com – back up your twitter

account (Free) Archive Facebook – experimental Firefox

add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13993 SocialSafe.net – currently does not download Facebook

Fan Pages

It should be clear to all staff whether social media can be consulted during the hiring process and under what conditions.

The City Attorney should advise on whether a Terms of Use statement should be crafted for social media, and what it would cover.

This statement would be aimed at visitors to the site (Facebook, blogs, etc.)

The issue of computer security should be separated from the issue of productivity.

Productivity is the responsibility of the supervisor.

Computer security is the responsibility of IT.

Firewalls must be secure

IT should consider using browsers that have better protection against viruses Google Chrome, Firefox will warn you

about infected sites prior to visiting

Antivirus protection must be up to date