New community guidelines for the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) Facebook page include bans of up to 90 days for those who repeatedly post comments that are construed as bullying, harassment, or otherwise inappropriate.
“If it doesn’t violate any of the criteria, it stays on the page. People can agree, people can disagree, people can debate. I think as long as it’s done in a healthy and productive, safe environment, it’s fine,” said Justus Polson-Lahache, MCK’s director of Public Relations.
The initiative has been led by MCK’s communications staff, rather than enacted by the council table, according to Polson-Lahache.
Similarly, it is staff who would evaluate whether commenters have violated the policy, which also prohibits content that incites violence or foments hatred, sexual content, defamation, impersonation, breaches of confidentiality, personal attacks, solicitation, and “otherwise obscene content.”
Polson-Lahache said it’s an extension of an effort since 2024, and that the latest document was produced to ensure there is a clear guide to determine what should be removed.
“It was always something that we struggled with. It was very hard to watch a lot of the engagement that takes place on the Facebook page. A lot of times it was very negative,” said Polson-Lahache.
“As an organization, we felt we needed to address when people were instilling lateral violence,” he added.
However, while a need for sanctions was identified, the department did not want to permanently ban people from the page, Polson-Lahache said, leading to a maximum 90-day penalty.
The MCK Facebook page has become a critical forum for community discourse, especially as community meetings have been sparsely attended and increasingly contentious. Many commenters on the announcement wondered whether the policy could be misused to suppress political speech, even as some acknowledged the validity of the policy’s stated goals.
“Opposition seems overwhelming,” said Sean French, who is among those who commented on the post.
He said that while action is understandable considering the prevalence of disrespectful comments, he believes there is skepticism in the community of the band council, including a lack of trust in the Council’s transparency, that bleeds into people’s interpretation of the policy.
“The MCK needs to fix their relationship with the community first,” he said.
Polson-Lahache acknowledged the importance of the page to community discourse and said the MCK wants to ensure people are able to share their views openly, even if they’re unpopular, as long as they are not harmful, and that his team doesn’t take their responsibility lightly.
“I think we need to push a little more information on where it applies because there seems to be a little bit of misunderstanding that … if you share an opinion that might not be popular with the MCK, it’s going to get blocked. That’s not the case at all,” he said.
“It’s really trying to keep it a positive space and a place where people don’t feel worried or scared about sharing their opinion because they’re going to be attacked.”
He also said he believes there’s a human element in moderating content when it’s not clearcut whether it’s a violation, which he acknowledged can happen.
While the policy has been instituted by Public Relations, it was circulated to Council chiefs for feedback.
“The main thing is that we want to create a safe space where community members feel comfortable to engage and share their thoughts and opinions without having to worry about personal attacks or harassment,” said MCK chief Jeremiah Johnson, who spoke on the policy on behalf of the council table.
He said it’s a policy, not a law, and policies can be changed as needed if adjustments need to be made. “It’s not written in stone,” he added.
“The goal is not to censor anybody. It’s just to create that safe space. The guidelines don’t have anything in them that you haven’t already agreed to for the most part when you sign up for Facebook,” Johnson said.
One reason for instituting the policy, according to Polson-Lahache, was Facebook’s slow responses to comments being reported for violations.
At one point in the past, Polson-Lahache said, the MCK even took down its Facebook presence in response to issues with inappropriate comments. At the time, he said, Facebook did not allow comments to be turned off, and there was no such thing as a page, typically used today by organizations, but instead profiles and groups, which were managed differently.
That followed an instance in 2014, after business hours on a Friday, when there was a flurry of derogatory attacks posted to the MCK’s Facebook.
“That following Monday we had shut down the page. We didn’t come back online until a few years later when we saw that Facebook created the page feature,” which offered more control, he said.
The MCK decided not to turn off comments at that time to ensure community members’ opinions could be shared, he said.
“We wanted to make it a space where community members can engage and have debates.”
There is a 30-day grace period in effect before the policy is fully implemented. The moderators will continue to remove comments that violate the terms in the meantime, however.
marcus@easterndoor.com
Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
By Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jul 31, 2026 at 11:52
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