HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Anyone wanting to see last night's video recording of the Hutchinson USD 308 Board meeting found nothing on the district's Facebook Page. Marissa Meis with USD 308 says it appears that the meeting was censored by Facebook due to the large amount of discussion surrounding COVID and the district's mask policy:
“It has come to our attention that the Facebook Live recording of the Board of Education meeting Monday, August 9th 2021, was removed,” Meis said. “This was not done by USD 308 staff and appears to be a censorship issue.”
Mies says the video was taken down without the district's knowledge and could be tied to the spirited discussion regarding the district COVID policy.
“Due to the nature of the discussion from last night it appears that the video was taken down without our knowledge,” Meis said. “There is precedent of social media platforms removing content that mentions COVID-19 and vaccinations and other issues, and that is what we believe to have happened.”
Meis says they are making changes to make sure such incidents don’t happen again and if they do the district will have a video back up.
“We are working with Facebook and Zoom and their help centers and IT centers to get to the bottom of what actually happened," Meis said.
The district is the only one in the area where masks are required in all buildings and vehicles. The policy discussion drew a large crowd of patrons at Monday’s meeting voicing their objections to the policy.
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