Lynn Walsh

An article written for Texas Watchdog:

Should elected officials be allowed to tweet during public meetings? One city says it might violate open meetings laws.
Wed Feb 17 15:57:00 2010 CST
By Lynn Walsh

To tweet or not to tweet? That is a question some council members in Nashville, Tenn., are asking themselves today after being asked to not use Twitter during public meetings.

The (Nashville) Tennessean reported today that the use of Twitter by council members during meetings could be problematic and may violate the state’s Open Meetings Act.

According to the story:

(The council attorney) said council members should refrain from using Twitter during meetings to discuss bills under debate or other members’ comments. Doing so could violate the state Open Meetings Act. …

“Using Twitter as a tool to communicate principally with your constituents, I don’t think that’s a violation of the Open Meetings Act,” said (one council member). “I don’t think you can blame a member, with the tools at their disposal, for getting all the information out there that they can.”

Open meetings laws are in place to ensure the public has access to the deliberations of public officials: When officials decide whether to raise taxes, close schools or regulate everything from cell phones to puppy mills, the public has an interest in knowing how the decisions are made.

In Texas, the issue of how officials can use social media surfaced in a lawsuit filed by a handful of small cities challenging the state’s Open Meetings Act:

(The cities) argued that some communication, including in e-mails and social media Web sites, should be allowed by a quorum outside of a posted meeting.

Twitter updates are archived on the Internet. But depending on an individual’s privacy settings, some information is not publicly available. Does it matter? Could the updates be aggregated the way a public access television station records public meetings? Is Twitter too open or not open enough?