The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, even on social media. So, what happens when a public figure limits who can participate in online public forums?

It’s an issue that pops up time and time again in this digital age, as social media has become one of the primary ways the public can connect with public officials.

Most recently, the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office made the decision to disable comments on its Facebook page, which some may perceive as an act of censorship — but it’s not that simple, some say.

“From this point moving forward, there are no comments on our posts,” Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol said.

Maciol said the decision to disable the comment section was made after Facebook posts about hot topic cases received hundreds of comments, most of which, he said, were unproductive.

“Those comments would quickly go negative, threatening,” Maciol said, “Sometimes inciting people to retaliate against the person who was charged.”

But the sheriff’s office is a government-funded and supported agency, and taking away that public forum raises some red flags.

“Taking any kind of move to censor an individual’s speech or censor an individual’s comments on that site would run afoul of the First Amendment,” explained Michael Streissguth, a communications professor at Le Moyne College.

But that’s only if the sheriff’s office were to pick and choose who can comment or which comments can be seen.

Maciol said in order to avoid any kind of infringement on peoples’ freedom of speech, the department ultimately decided to disable comments for everyone.

“If we begin to filter them or if someone reviews them, not when we, when we block someone from commenting, we’re not obviously violating the First Amendment, which we don’t want to do,” Maciol said.

Streissguth says the department should be in the clear.

“By essentially eliminating that forum, they were able to, or potentially are able to, skirt any kind of vulnerability or complaints under the First Amendment,” the professor explained.

But while the department may not have to worry about violating rights, it may have to worry about the consequences of losing the forum.

“In this digital world, we are accustomed to communicating via the internet, communicating on social media,” Streissguth said, “So there’s certainly the possibility that it could affect trust in the sheriff’s department.”

Although comments have been disabled, Maciol says there are still plenty of ways to contact the sheriff’s office, including Facebook Messenger, email, the Sheriff’s App and Mohawk Valley Crime Stoppers.