Blogging for Minneapolis City Council

The Minneapolis city council passed a resolution allowing the council to use city resource to maintain blogs as long has they follow some set guidelines.  See the Southwest Journal article for all the details.

Guidlines

Under the new resolution, councilmembers who choose to maintain city-sponsored blogs do have to follow a list of regulations. Any blog that uses city staff or resources must include a disclaimer that lets readers know that the blog is a limited public forum sponsored by the city and that things such as defamatory comments, profane language, sexually explicit remarks, comments that promote discrimination, and any remarks related to political campaigning or soliciting for charities are not allowed. Councilmembers must allow all comments that are within the guidelines set by the city and must retain records of any rejected comments, along with the reason why they were rejected.

Concerns

But the list of regulations wasn't enough to convince Councilmember Don Samuels (5th Ward) that the blogs are a good idea. He said he worried that people would use the blogs to attack councilmembers and that monitoring the comments posted would be difficult.

“Freedom of speech that is unbridled Š can do more harm than good,” Samuels told his colleagues during the City Council meeting. “There's no doubt about that.”

Council President Barb Johnson (4th Ward) and Councilmember Sandy Colvin Roy (12th Ward) also said they have concerns about the city's liability when it comes to blogs, noting that people could sue the city because of material placed on the blogs or if they felt their voice had been blocked and their First Amendment rights had been violated.

For the record, I think it is a good idea, but I think they should turn off the comment feature so that city staff do not have to waste time monitoring the comment section.