City Quietly Bans Residents From Commenting on its Facebook Posts

Ocean Springs Becomes the Only Coast City to Take the Social Out of Social Media

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. (GC Wire) — The City of Ocean Springs has quietly turned its official Facebook page into a one-way broadcast.

Residents can read the posts. They just can’t respond to them.

Sometime after August 22, 2025 — just weeks after Mayor Bobby Cox took office — city officials began disabling comments on nearly every post made from the city’s official Facebook account. Out of hundreds of posts since then, only a handful have allowed public replies.

The shift effectively removes one of the most accessible ways for residents to question, challenge, or even clarify information shared by their local government.

From Public Forum to Locked Feed

The city’s Facebook page is not a rarely used account. Officials post multiple times a day with topics that include road closures, boil water notices, event announcements, and emergency updates.

For many residents, it’s the fastest — and sometimes the only — way to engage with what’s happening in real time.

Now, that interaction is gone.

Facebook pages operated by government entities have increasingly been treated by courts as “public forums,” where viewpoint-based restrictions can raise constitutional concerns. While limited moderation of comments is allowed in certain cases, outright disabling comments across the board can draw scrutiny, particularly when the page is used for official communications.

There is no law prohibiting a city from turning off comments from residents, but it is often frowned upon by residents when done.

A Pattern Years in the Making

This isn’t the first time Ocean Springs officials have shut down public feedback online.

In 2023, the Ocean Springs Police Department disabled comments on its Facebook page after repeated posts reading “God Bless the Homeless Vets” began appearing under its updates.

The comments were tied to activist Jeff Gray, who had been trespassed from city property for holding a hand written sign with the same message.

Gray later filed a federal lawsuit against the city. In 2025, the case was settled for an undisclosed amount. Public records requests seeking details of the settlement have been denied, and an ethics complaint related to that secrecy remains pending.

An Outlier on the Coast

Across the Mississippi Gulf Coast, most cities maintain active social media pages that allow public interaction — often with moderation policies, but rarely with blanket shutdowns of comments.

Ocean Springs appears to be the exception.

Pascagoula, Gautier, Biloxi, and Gulfport allow residents to comment on posts made to their respective Facebook pages.

By turning off comments entirely, the city avoids criticism in real time — but it also removes a public channel for accountability, questions, and community input.

And for residents trying to be heard, the message is simple:

The city is still talking.

It’s just no longer listening.