COUNCILLOR Paul Dowson has resigned as a governor of Ysgol Harri Tudur.
When a post carrying this news was shared by this newspaper on Facebook, it attracted inappropriate and potentially libellous comments.
The original post was, therefore, removed.
“Further Facebook comments in the same vein will result in those comments’ deletion”, said a Herald Facebook page admin.
A spokesperson for Pembrokeshire County Council said: “Over the weekend, Council Leader David Simpson received complaints from members of the public regarding Cllr Dowson’s conduct.
“The Monitoring Officer is examining those complaints.”
In relation to the deletion of the previous version of this story Herald Editor Tom Sinclair said: “We are not an archaic news outlet, we try very hard to reflect all up-to-date news, views and events from across our county and we take no pleasure in limiting freedom of speech, it’s a foundation stone not only of our business, but also of the country we’re a part of. Local news also moves quickly and sometimes stories need to be updated as they happen.
“Where we can we allow passionate and vocal debate to take place in our newspaper and on our Facebook and social media pages. There are times, however, when these debates cross a line into malicious messages and threats.
“It is not the job of The Pembrokeshire Herald to host indecent and possibly libelous messages under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’. We will continue to shine a spotlight on the local political scene but if discussions cross into hate speech, lies and threats the only course of action open to any responsible news outlet is to remove those posts which we will continue to do as and when we feel the need.
“We’re always here to listen to your thoughts on this or any issue affecting Pembrokeshire and we welcome anyone to be part of that discussion via our newspaper, website and social media pages.”
