Social Media Policies in Public Safety

It has never been easier for law enforcement officers, firefighters, dispatchers, and other public safety employees to broadcast their personal views on a range of issues to the community and to the world through social media. With increasing regularity, employees openly share their views on local and national politics, internal agency operations, the competence of their agency leaders, and a multitude of other issues in a way that is accessible to the public.

This presents a difficult challenge to public agency leaders as they seek to hold employees accountable for statements that harm agency operations while also respecting employees’ First Amendment rights. This balance is made even more challenging due to the necessity of analyzing each individual posting to determine if the post is (1) a statement of public policy position, or (2) one that demeans members of the community that they are sworn to serve and, therefore, undermines their ability to serve in a public safety role.

In this two-hour webinar training, Attorney Matt Dolan will discuss:

• Public safety employees’ freedom of speech rights and limitations in the age of social media
• Consistent discipline in the face of controversial political statements
• Conduct unbecoming standards—back to basics
• Saving employees from themselves through clear policies and preventative training
• Leading by example—the importance of command staff exhibiting discipline in their social media activity