The San Diego Sheriff's Department Facebook page will be staying offline, for now.
A lawsuit was filed against the department in October by gun-parts dealer Dimitrios Karras over the removal of comments he made on a post. The page was also deleted and a judge was left to determine whether the man's First Amendment rights were violated.
While the lawsuit has not come to a close, a judge did determine Wednesday that taking the page down voluntarily - and keeping it down - is the department's right.
The page was yanked after comments from Karras questioned Sheriff Bill Gore about a controversial 1992 FBI standoff in Idaho that left an unarmed woman carrying a baby dead.
Sheriff's spokesperson Jan Caldwell said in November when the page was initially pulled from the web "to avoid the time, expense and hassel necessary to enforce the department's policies regarding user comments," the page was removed rather than monitored. She said the department will use "other means of social media" such as Twitter and their website.
Because the lawsuit is still ongoing, she could make no comment on the matter now.
In November, Karras told NBC 7 he thinks the whole point is to "do the right thing" and to "stop censoring comments based on the contents therein." He said if the department wants to have a Facebook page, disable comments entirely, not "discriminate based on what they're saying."
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"Don't do it. It's wrong," he said.
The department, however, argued that the comments violated their posting guidelines, which are to stay on topic and maintain respect. Karras' comments about the 20-year-old FBI case were made on a post about school bus safety.
Karras filed the case in federal court demanding the page be put back up and the comments restored. That case is ongoing.
