Thread by @akurjata

I believe Quesnel mayor Bob Simpson was ahead of the curb when he decided to get rid of his Facebook profile. Seeing more politicians do same. And there's this:

More B.C. municipalities are turning off Facebook comments
cbc.ca/news/canada/br…

We went generations without Facebook comments on city notices in newspapers, I'm sure things will be able to function just fine this way. Anyone who doesn't at least have some sympathy for doing this doesn't spend time managing a Facebook page

Here's the thing: I started a fb page for our show very early on, before it was a primary strategy. A lot of effort went into fostering a good community and, overall, it was successful for a long time. But increasingly the effort that went into doing so wasn't worth the tradeoff

I will say openly: I was among the most skeptical about the benefits of turning off comments. I'm a person who would actually engage with the criticism, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. But not having to worry about it, at all, has been an improvement to my life and work

I still receive criticism, some fair, some not, about my work. Emails, DMs, tweets, I can see it. It doesn't mean I'm being less reflective of my work or not getting feedback from the public. It does mean I'm not getting performative pile-ons from people who don't read articles

Even better: It means we can post journalism about sensitive topics or people in vulnerable positions without worrying about people essentially bullying them. At least not in a space that is ostensibly endorsed by us