Marc Ambinder, who blogs for Nextgov sister site Atlantic.com, raises an issue for agencies that have created a Facebook page -- which seems like just about every agency.
Case in point: The State Department Facebook page had, up until very recently, two links to Web pages for Barack Obama as maintained by the Democratic National Committee and the one set for Joe Biden by his now defunct political committee. As Ambinder points out:
You can access these pages through, say, the Department's page for the Kabul embassy. It is the 21st century equivalent of putting up Obama for America yardsigns on the lawn of a U.S. embassy. Now -- this is a tiny and inconsequential violation of the rules, but it does seem to break the Hatch Act, which prohibits government from promoting political entities.
A State spokesperson said the pages would be removed.
It's not unrealistic to think that agencies will stumble over regulations and laws like this as they learn the social networking ropes.
COMMENTS
RON, you obviously don't remember when DoD actually had BUSH in his "ill-fitting aviation" suit declaring VICTORY for on the deck of an aircraft carrier! AMAZING, how "short term" your memory is...tsk, tsk.
NOR 03/05/10 09:14 am ET
CAN YOU IMAGINE what the news media would have done with this had George W been caught politicizing federal websites? Federal employees have been fined and fired for just such transgressions, yet even the one, obscure, trade rag that did catch and dare to print this story characterizes Obama's lawbreaking as " tiny and inconsequential," and then it excuses the State Department's failure to "learn the ropes" of social networking, as though it was some alien technology. Are the people at State really that dumb? Or is NextGov.com so wedded to the Obama Cult of Personality that it will ride roughshod over the law? Apparently, both.
Ron 03/04/10 08:40 am ET