Ojai adopts formal social‑media policy to moderate threats while preserving free speech

The Ojai City Council on June 23 adopted an updated social‑media policy and a community calendar policy to guide how staff moderates official city accounts and publishes community events.

Staff said the policies were developed jointly by the city manager’s office, the city attorney and outside communications counsel. The measures designate city channels as a limited public forum to allow objective regulation of the manner—but not the viewpoint—of speech on official channels. The policy sets a narrow, objective standard under which staff may hide or remove comments (direct threats to public safety, explicit sexual content, targeted discrimination against protected classes, commercial spam, or material that interferes with law enforcement). Blocking a user is a last resort and requires repeated policy violations.

To preserve transparency and comply with the California Public Records Act (CPRA), any comment hidden or removed must be preserved and logged in an auditable moderation record; staff must maintain an archiving plan. Council also adopted a community calendar policy to standardize postings and ensure equitable access for groups that request event listings.

Council asked staff and the ad hoc committee to return with implementation details, including an initial list of flagged words and an intake pathway (for example, a MyOjai help ticket) for members of the public to flag suspected policy violations or defamatory statements for staff review. Staff was directed to publish a pinned community‑code post on official channels and to institute multifactorauthentication and centralized credential management for city accounts.

Council members said the policy balanced protecting civil discourse with the city’s ability to limit explicit threats and comply with public‑records law.