My local town forum went from a total mess to a ghost town in under a year

About 18 months ago, our town's Facebook page was wild. People argued about everything from potholes to school board drama. It was messy, but you saw real opinions. Then the admins brought in a new 'civility policy' last fall. Now, any post seen as 'divisive' or 'likely to cause arguments' gets taken down. I saw a post about a new apartment building get removed because two people disagreed on the height. The page is just boring announcements now. It feels like they traded free speech for a fake kind of peace. Has anyone else seen a local online space get cleaned up until there was nothing left to say?

4 comments

4 Comments

cooper.drew2mo ago

So what even counts as "divisive" now?

leewalker2mo ago

Remember that library meeting about the new teen section? They called the debate over beanbag chairs "divisive" and cut it from the minutes. Feels like anything that makes two people disagree gets that label now.

xena_bailey182mo ago

Honestly I get why they did it. Our town page was a total war zone before, like people calling each other names over trash pickup days. That's not useful for anyone. A little cleanup was needed. Maybe they went too far taking down the apartment post, but constant fighting just drives normal people away. You need some rules or else the loudest jerks take over. It's a tough balance for sure.

gray_morgan1mo ago

Can we all agree that "divisive" has become the town's favorite word for anything mildly interesting? I almost got flagged the other day for asking if the new traffic light was timed too long. That's not divisive, that's just me being impatient because I'm always late to work. Maybe I need to start a support group for people whose opinions got called divisive. We could meet at the library, but someone would probably complain about the beanbag chairs.