When it comes to free speech and censorship, Facebook lives in a murky legal area. Earlier this week, the police department in Everett, Washington, disabled the comment section on its Facebook page after it received increasing amounts of violent and threatening posts over the past several months. While the police department said the move is a “temporary pause,” it has still drawn criticism from community members who claim the police are trying to chill users’ free speech.

Criticism of the department began to build after a video taken by a woman being arrested went viral. And while it makes sense for police to crack down on posts calling for violence, experts say that government agencies need to be extra careful when preventing users from being able to use their voices.

“Where you get into a tricky area is in between trying to find the sweet spot where you allow some comments, allow some engagement, but then take inappropriate comments down,” said Alex Bolton, the program manager at the University of Washington Tech Policy Lab. “You have to worry about viewpoint discrimination which then leads to First Amendment concerns.”

Like with many content moderation issues for Facebook, there’s no clear right answer for how the company or the police should proceed. But no matter what, someone is going to be left angry at the social media giant.

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