A resident of a Polish town has started to receive the mayor’s Facebook posts printed on paper and delivered to his home after he requested access to them following the mayor’s decision to block him on the social media platform. The man has to pay 6.80 zloty (€1.50) for each delivery.
Among the printouts received by Paweł – a resident of Puławy in eastern Poland, who has withheld his surname from publication – are the mayor’s Facebook posts relating to a jazz concert, an aerial photograph of the town from 2004, and investment in sports and education infrastructure,
Pewien mieszkaniec Puław został zablokowany na Facebooku przez prezydenta miasta, a niektóre jego posty były udostępniane przez oficjalny profil Puław oraz profil MOSiRu.
Zbanowany mieszkaniec uznał, że jest odcięty od informacji i złożył zawiadomienie do prokuratury oraz… pic.twitter.com/VCrH24DBn5
— Radek Karbowski (@RadekKar) October 8, 2023
“I wanted to show the absurdity of the whole situation – that institutions are printing out Facebook pages for me,” Paweł told broadcaster TVN. “It may seem like a trivial matter, but the point here is that my civil rights are being restricted.”
He notes that he was blocked by the mayor around four years ago, shortly after he came to office. As a result, Paweł could not access the official’s posts, which are regularly also shared by the town’s official Facebook profile and other municipal accounts.
“In such situations, people like me – whom the mayor has blocked on his profile – do not see these posts,” said Paweł. “And there is sometimes important information in them about what is happening in our local community. I know that I am not the only one who has been blocked on Facebook by the mayor.”
Facebook has lifted the ban it imposed on far-right party Confederation last year for spreading Covid misinformation and hate speech.
The social media giant says the end of the pandemic and Poland’s upcoming elections are behind the decision https://t.co/Lel1XnRSCX
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 12, 2023
Paweł therefore filed a notice to prosecutors and took the matter to Poland’s commissioner for human rights. He argues that the mayor’s Facebook page – which is called “Paweł Maj – Mayor of the Town of Puławy” – is a public official’s communication channel and not a private profile.
After Paweł’s notification to prosecutors of a possible criminal offence, Puławy’s official Facebook profile and another municipal account stopped sharing the mayor’s posts.
Paweł also submitted a request to receive the posts under Poland’s law on access to public information. “You can indicate in what form you want to get it. I chose paper,” he told TVN. However, receiving such letters by recorded delivery costs 6.80 zloty.
The mayor himself has written in response to interpellations submitted by two city councillors and to a letter he received from the human rights commissioner that his profile was created before he took office as mayor. It was then called “Paweł Maj – Councillor of the Town of Puławy”.
The mayor also points out that he personally maintains the profile as an individual and argues that it cannot be equated with an official city account. He says that he has only blocked accounts posting spam messages or those that share “hate speech and aggression” or “disseminate untruths.”
Paweł denies spreading such content. “I do not agree with many of the decisions made by the mayor, but I certainly did not offend him in the public space, and even if I did, it is not for him to judge me and punish me by restricting access to public information”, he told TVN.
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Main image credit: TVN24 (screenshot)
Agata Pyka is an assistant editor at Notes from Poland. She is a journalist and a political communication student at the University of Amsterdam. She specialises in Polish and European politics as well as investigative journalism and has previously written for Euractiv and The European Correspondent.
