Over the last few days, the District Communications Department has seen several questions and conversations surrounding the Victoria ISD Facebook page and comments being turned off on every post. The District recognizes the changing way staff, students, and stakeholders communicate and obtain online information relating to the program's information, student, staff, and campus celebrations. The District, campuses, and programs participate in social media platforms to reach our audience across multiple platforms and to be accessible to all.
During the end of the 2020-21 school year; however, we saw fewer on-topic comments regarding student and staff success and achievement or program acknowledgment, and it became clear that the District’s Facebook page was utilized as an avenue to communicate information unrelated to the post(s) in question. In an effort to address this issue, the District implemented Social Media Guidelines that allowed for public comments on social media outlet(s), while reserving the right to remove messages or postings in violation of those guidelines. The Social Media Guidelines are linked on the District Facebook page and available on the Communications page on www.visd.net. These guidelines were not followed by commenters on the District’s Facebook page. Accordingly, the District decided to turn off comments on every post made to the Victoria ISD Facebook page.
Due to the nature of Facebook’s processes, there is no way to disable comments completely. Consequently, each post must have comments disabled individually at the time of posting. From time to time a post that is made to the Facebook page would temporarily allow for comments. In keeping with the District’s decision, those comments were disabled as soon as possible after they were discovered by the Communications Department.
Finally, the District is not required by federal or state law to allow comments on the District’s Facebook page. While the District has disabled the comments feature, no one is being prohibited from accessing District social media websites. In fact, the District encourages all who use social media to follow the District’s platforms, including https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaISD/, to receive updates and information relating to the educational program and including student, staff, and campus celebrations.