Lakritz: We should protect our politicians from nasty attacks on social media | Calgary Herald

Witless Bay has a not-so-dimwitted idea. Town council there is hiring a criminal lawyer to review social media posts and give advice on dealing with “accusatory messages” about council members – in other words, messages that could be libellous because they represent a smear campaign or implicate a councillor in criminal activity.

Free speech is not being muzzled. A lawyer can only operate within the scope of the law and would obviously know the difference between free speech and something that breached hate or libel laws, or involved uttering threats. Witless Bay’s move could be a model for restoring some civility to the ugly free-for-all of social media, for all levels of government in Alberta.