![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Commissioner-Bill-Braswell.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nPolk County Commissioner Braswell wrote the following and put it on the internet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook: No Comment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n By Bill Braswell<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you call a Facebook page that doesn\u2019t allow comments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A free website that\u2019s easy to manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Manufactured outrage seems to be one of the hottest trends of 2026. My longstanding position that Polk County should eliminate its social media presence has somehow resulted in people losing their minds over Facebook comments. Seriously?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve been advocating for years that Polk County move away from social media and develop a more comprehensive website where residents can find everything they need to know about county government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apparently, that is a radical idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that brings me to my point. There is a difference between using Facebook to inform the public and using it to host an endless argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere along the way, we confused communication with entertainment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polk County originally used Facebook for a legitimate purpose: distributing important information to residents. Road construction, meeting notices, emergency info, and other government business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simple enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, those announcements increasingly became opportunities for arguments, insults, misinformation, and occasionally outright lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let me give you an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polk County is constructing a roundabout on Spirit Lake Road. The county posted information about partial lane closures during construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A woman apparently thought it would be entertaining to announce in the comments that the road was completely closed and detours were in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Neither statement was true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another person promptly confirmed her false information. Then came a dozen comments from people complaining about how the nonexistent detour was affecting their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Think about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One person posts something false. Another validates it. Within minutes, people are reacting to an event that never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And somehow, county government is expected to provide the platform for this nonsense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is what I call manufactured outrage. Someone creates a problem that doesn\u2019t exist, others enthusiastically participate, and suddenly government employees are spending time correcting misinformation instead of doing their jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t understand the fascination with intentionally misleading strangers, but social media has turned it into something resembling a competitive sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s acknowledge another uncomfortable truth. Many people don\u2019t visit Facebook for the original post. They skim the first couple of sentences and head straight for the comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where the entertainment begins. Who will say something outrageous? Who will insult whom? Who will be offended today? It\u2019s a spectator sport, and government shouldn\u2019t be providing the stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I understand why local governments originally embraced Facebook. It\u2019s free, easy to use and requires little technical expertise. Smaller cities can post announcements and livestream meetings without investing in website development or specialized personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Polk County is not a small municipality operating on a shoestring budget. We have the resources to maintain a professional, comprehensive website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where I believe our information belongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And let me be perfectly clear. Citizens have the right to criticize their government, question elected officials and express opinions. They can attend public meetings, contact commissioners, send emails, speak publicly, or post on their own social media page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What they don\u2019t have is an automatic right to use a government Facebook comment section as their personal soapbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a difference between freedom of speech and expecting taxpayers to provide the microphone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polk County should be in the business of providing accurate information, not managing a chat room full of misinformation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editorial Polk County Commissioner Braswell wrote the following and put it on the internet. Facebook: No Comment By Bill Braswell What do you call a Facebook page that doesn\u2019t allow… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjFcLzA5XC9Db21taXNzaW9uZXItQmlsbC1CcmFzd2VsbC5qcGciLCJ0eHQiOiJXaHkgaXMgUG9sayBDb3VudHkgQ29tbWlzc2lvbmVyIEJyYXN3ZWxsIFN1Y2ggYW4gQXh4aG9sZSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.N6923uBucltwDbNcho9D05cjpQYyb0M2rUSI3qNzBZ4MQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjFcLzA5XC9Db21taXNzaW9uZXItQmlsbC1CcmFzd2VsbC5qcGciLCJ0eHQiOiJXaHkgaXMgUG9sayBDb3VudHkgQ29tbWlzc2lvbmVyIEJyYXN3ZWxsIFN1Y2ggYW4gQXh4aG9sZSIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.N6923uBucltwDbNcho9D05cjpQYyb0M2rUSI3qNzBZ4MQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[15959,18860,18431,15298,18301,16560,18283],"class_list":["post-86687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial","tag-bill-braswell","tag-editorial","tag-facebook-comments","tag-local-government","tag-misinformation","tag-public-policy","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86689,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86687\/revisions\/86689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}