BERLIN — Concerned by the antisocial behavior displayed by some who use social media the Select Board is hoping to handcuff those who frequent their police department's Facebook page.

As an interim step, the department has been asked to discontinue its practice of posting the mug shots of some of the people who are arrested in the community, while taking down those previously posted.

The alternative – preventing people from posting comments – was discussed and may be revisited by a board that is troubled by the tone of the online conversations that are occurring on an unmoderated Facebook page for which the town is ultimately responsible.

The issue surfaced during this week's brief discussion of a proposed social media policy. Chairman Ture Nelson said he didn't want to wait for the adoption of that voluminous document to take steps to end the vitriolic back-and-forth that seems to occur whenever a mug shot is posted by the police department.

“The comments we receive on our Facebook page for that are not helpful, not polite, and downright mean in many instances,” Nelson said, describing them as “totally inappropriate on a government website.”

Citing the South Burlington Police Department's decision to stop posting mug shots on its Facebook page last summer, Nelson said Berlin should either follow suit or disable the comment function for those particular posts.

Board member Jeremy Hansen said the latter isn't really an option because, when it comes to Facebook, you can't pick and choose what people can comment on.

“It's all or nothing,” he explained.

That said, Hansen agreed with Nelson that no immediate steps should be taken until the board has a broader discussion of how to proceed.

“It might be better to take down the mugshot posts for now,” he said.

The issue has prompted some residents to voice concern online, over the phone and in person. Nick Garbacik, who attended Monday night's meeting, is one of them.

Garbacik said he saw little upside to the department's current practice of posting mugshots with some arrest reports.

“It creates an avenue for people to throw stones,” Garbacik said.

“It's feeding gossip,” he added. “Is that really the intent of it?”

Others have expressed concern over the hostile nature of some of the comments, while some have worried their potentially libelous content could result in the town being sued for hosting the forum that allows them.

Hansen said that is one of the reasons the Vermont League of Cities and Town's boilerplate social media policy is as thick as it is.

The latest posted mug shot, which provoked nearly three dozen comments and several dozen replies, involved the recent arrest of an 18-year-old Williamstown man who was allegedly caught driving with a criminally suspended license.

Based on Monday night's discussion, Town Administrator Dana Hadley said Tuesday he had spoken with Police Chief William Wolfe about discontinuing the practice of posting mug shots and taking those mugshots that had previously been posted down.

Hadley said blocking comments would require more thought because, while police aren't interested in monitoring petty online squabbles, they don't want to close the door to comments as South Burlington did with its Facebook page months before it stopped posting mugshots.

“Some of the comments we don't want and some of the comments we do want,” Hadley said.

According to Hadley, it will be up to Wolfe to implement the board's directive and up to the board to decide whether to refine its position when it discusses the social media policy.

david.delcore @timesargus.com