FCC Officials Leave With Their Social Media Accounts

“There isn’t any doubt that having a verified account, with the followers they’ve built up, is a valuable asset,” said Alex Howard, director of the Digital Democracy Project at the Demand Progress Educational Fund. An “uproar” would ensue if a federal officeholder left with physical assets or binders of official documents, and this is similar, Howard said last week.

Government ethics groups and academics aren’t sure there’s an issue. As long as former officeholders make it clear they no longer represent their agency, it's not an ethical problem, said a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington. Former government officials often leave office with some amount of fame, notoriety and credibility as an expert, and their social media following is analogous to those intangibles, CREW said.

Former FCC Commissioners Ajit Pai, Mike O’Rielly and Mignon Clyburn transitioned the Twitter accounts they used in their official capacity into being their private accounts as they left office, with the same follower counts and verified status. Though they announced the accounts’ shift from official use to private -- Pai did so here -- and took “FCC” out of their handles, holding onto the followers and accounts themselves is “unethical” because they were built up in part during government service, Howard said.

“This is all new; all these norms are still developing,” said Irina Raicu, director of the Internet Ethics Program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Keeping social media followers isn’t the same as taking home a desk from the office, she said. A large number of social media followers is more like a sandcastle, she said: “They amass and they dissipate.” During the 2017 presidential transition, the transfer of Twitter accounts occurred during a much different context, she noted: “I don’t think there’s clear guidance, and when there’s no clear guidance, I’m reluctant to describe it as unethical.”

The issue shows why government officials intermixing personal and official business on social media accounts may be a mistake, Raicu said. How an account should be treated when an officeholder steps down would be clearer with explicit divisions in their social media use, she said. It would also add clarity to the issue of archiving messages. Officeholders shouldn't have to treat personal social media handles as databases subject to FOIA after they step down, she said.

Virtual Assets

Many experts we interviewed in recent days agreed there's a difference between keeping social media accounts and taking documents and physical assets.

It's very easy for Twitter users to choose to cease following ex-FCC commissioners when they leave office, said Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, who co-directs the school’s High Tech Law Institute. That makes a social media account’s status as an asset less clear than official documents, he said. A Twitter account associated with a company or brand differs from one associated with a particular government official, Goldman said. Businesses have argued that branded accounts are company assets, and though Goldman said he sees that as a legitimate argument, even the litigation on the issue has been “irresolute,” he said.

Pai and O’Rielly didn’t comment, but Clyburn said she consulted with the FCC about what to do with her account when she left the agency. “I did keep my account and of course changed the handle,” Clyburn emailed. “I not only got guidance internally, I spoke with those I knew at other agencies to make sure I was not doing anything new or novel.” Former Chairman Tom Wheeler deactivated the account he used in his FCC capacity when he left office, Howard pointed out. So did others at the time as well. The FCC didn't comment Friday.

There doesn’t seem to be a clear rule framework or practice for how government officials handle their social media when they exit office, conceded Howard, who compared the issue to the “Wild West” in a series of tweets last week about Pai’s account. It's “a broad systemic issue” that cuts across federal, state and local governments, Goldman said.

Cabinet secretaries and some agency heads often have Twitter handles specific to them. An Interior Department spokesperson told us former Secretary David Bernhardt’s account has been archived, like those of many other officials, in accordance with records management protocols. Bernhardt’s account says it's “archived and no longer updated.” Other accounts indicating they're now archived or inactive include those of former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. Others straddle a line, such as personal accounts used by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

Until recently, the Twitter handle for former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was @senatemajldr, but it changed to @LeaderMcConnell now that he's minority leader. Republican Mike Huckabee, who was Arkansas governor from 1996 to 2007, continues to tweet as @GovMikeHuckabee. Howard blamed the lack of a standard practice on a tendency to discount the importance of social media. “There’s no doubt that what happens on social media can affect people’s lives or cost people jobs,” he said. “It is a powerful tool.” There are no hard and fast rules, CREW said.

“If government officials want to change their Twitter username and reach out for assistance, our teams will help facilitate the request,” a Twitter spokesperson emailed. The platform sent out a release timed with the presidential transition outlining its handling of executive branch Twitter accounts shifting to the Biden administration. “As we did in 2017, Twitter is actively working with the US government to support the archival and transition of Twitter accounts across administrations.”

Transparency issues are at stake as well, Howard and Goldman agreed. Official communications from government officials are required to be preserved and subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Twitter’s release said accounts such as @POTUS were transferred to the National Archives and Records Administration to be recorded before being handed off to the new administration. It isn’t clear how transparency rules apply to an account like Pai’s, which was used to transmit official FCC announcements and for more clearly personal communications about the Kansas City Chiefs or scary insects. With the account left in Pai’s private control, “what is there to prevent Pai from deleting his replies to reporters” in his direct messages, asked Howard.

“A lot of data is being generated by government employees that is susceptible to things like deletion and manipulation in ways the government can’t control,” said Goldman.