For you public affairs folks…

Just a reminder that official US Navy Facebook page(s) are not allowed to ban public users from commenting on their posts. This is based on legal precedent decided by the courts and enforced by the DOJ, that doing so violates the first amendment. For example, the US Naval Air Force’s Facebook page says that they reserve the right to remove comments that they deem vulgar or derogatory in nature. These disclaimers do not have the force of law and in fact, doing so would be unlawful.

If you run these and other public forums in an online setting, please take care to ensure you respect our constitution.