Police Department in South Carolina Says It Has 'Zero Tolerance for Hate Speech'

A free speech organization sent a letter to the police department last week, calling its anti–hate speech post unconstitutional.

The Columbia Police Department (CPD) wants South Carolinians to know that it has zero tolerance for "hate speech," and that's a problem.

Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment organization, sent Columbia's police chief a letter after the CPD posted an image on Facebook with text that says, "WE HAVE ZERO TOLERANCE FOR HATE SPEECH."

The image, posted on June 25, also features a police officer holding a phone that says "BLOCK LIST LOADING." In the post's caption, the CPD wrote, "We have seen an increase in vulgar, racist, threatening, bullying, and disrespectful comments under reels and other posts."

"This type of language and behavior will not be tolerated on our social media platforms," it added. "Comments that violate these standards may be hidden, removed, or handled accordingly."

The post also links to the song "thank u, next" by Ariana Grande.

While the CPD may have thought the post was a cheeky PSA, FIRE explained that the anti–hate speech message raised serious free speech concerns. The organization pointed out that the CPD's Facebook page is a designated public forum used for official government business, meaning it is subject to First Amendment rules.

FIRE also urged the CPD to revise its Facebook policy, which states that "CPD reserves the right to remove and/or block anyone who posts inappropriate material as determined by CPD." The policy also claims that "CPD reserves the right to remove any comments that are inappropriate, threatening or offensive, include personal information about another person or that violate a person's privacy interests, or include copyrighted material belonging to another person."

According to FIRE, the CPD's "ban on 'hate speech' and on 'inappropriate,' 'offensive,' 'racist,' or 'disrespectful' comments unconstitutionally discriminates based on viewpoint," as such prohibitions are subjectively determined based on the opinion or perspective of the speaker.

FIRE also noted that "prohibitions on 'vulgar' comments, copyrighted material, and 'personal information about another person or that violate a person's privacy interests' are unconstitutional content-based restrictions."

As of Monday, the CPD's June 25 post and the department's moderation policy still appeared on the department's page. The letter, authored by FIRE's director of public advocacy, Aaron Terr, requests a response no later than August 20.

This is not the first time public officials have needed a reminder to respect free speech. In 2019, after the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors chair blocked a Virginia resident from the public official's Facebook page, the resident sued, citing First Amendment violations. A federal appeals court unanimously held that because the comments section of the page was considered a public forum, the chair could not ban commenters based on viewpoint.

In 2021, a federal court held that the Arkansas State Police violated the First Amendment when the department set its moderation filter to the "strong" setting and blacklisted the words pig, copper, and jerk from its Facebook page. The court determined that the use of the strong filter setting was "unconstitutionally broad" and that filtering the words pig, copper, and jerk was a form of viewpoint discrimination. While the words pig and copper can have an "anti-police bent," the court wrote, "the First Amendment protects disrespectful language." The word jerk, meanwhile, "has no place on any prohibited-words list," said the court, "given the context of this page, the agency's justification for having a filter, and the harmlessness of that word."

FIRE's lawyers are not the only free speech advocates concerned about the CPD's post. More than 1,000 people commented on the anti–"hate speech" post. Many commenters called the post unconstitutional, rightfully pointing out that hate speech is protected speech. Although a Facebook page's moderation practices may not be the most pressing priority for many Americans, it is heartening to see the public care enough to remind government officials about the importance of free speech.