Yellowknife City Council plans to debate a resolution that would close comments on all municipal social channels.
According to an agenda published on Friday, council will discuss the resolution during a meeting of its Governance and Priorities Committee at noon on Wednesday, June 17.
The existence of a resolution doesn’t necessarily mean council will adopt it.
The issue of social media commenting, particularly on Facebook, has been in the spotlight lately following offensive, homophobic comments elsewhere on the platform – related to Pride Month – that triggered an NWT RCMP investigation.
Similar comments spilled over onto one of the city’s Pride-related Facebook posts, leading the municipality to shut down those comments and delete existing responses. Calling the comments “harmful and hateful,” the city subsequently republished its social media terms of engagement while appealing for residents to “communicate responsibly.”
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The resolution set to be debated on June 17 would, if passed, mean a ban on commenting across all city social channels. Those appear to include Instagram and YouTube based on channels linked from the city’s official website.
Who authored the resolution is not made clear in the agenda. (After this article was first published, Mayor Ben Hendriksen said he had brought forward the resolution, which he anticipates would receive a final vote on June 24.)
The resolution asserts that managing comments on various platforms “presents operational challenges and risks related to inappropriate content, misinformation, disinformation, harassment, and privacy concerns.”
Noting that some other municipalities have disabled public comments on their channels, the resolution would have council direct staff to shut down comments on city social channels no later than July 1, 2026.
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Staff would then be directed to “develop and clearly communicate alternative, accessible, and transparent methods for residents to provide feedback and engage with the City.”
Council would receive a report six months later documenting “the effectiveness of this approach, including any recommended adjustments or refinements based on observed outcomes.”
Some politicians in the NWT already close their comments sections for at least some of their posts. Cabin Radio has done the same for most Facebook posts – and, less frequently, on other channels – since 2021.
At the time, we said our small team faced having to “wade through dozens of comments, many of them abusive – either of us, of politicians, or of other commenters – and some sharing misinformation.”
