Lang
10/19/23
The City of Iowa City has issued an official statement on anti-Semitic comments made by Zoom callers at a recent city council meeting.
Anti-Semetic trolls using Zoom during Tuesday’s regular community comment session shared stereotypes and hateful rhetoric about the Jewish community, with other racist tropes against other groups mixed in. Councilors remained silent during the diatribes.
City officials defended the decision to let the calls continue, writing in Thursday’s news release, “Because Iowa City leadership understands that free speech is a constitutional right, these callers were each given their due three minutes for expression.” The news release goes on to say that despite the comments being allowed to continue, the city denounces what it calls “hateful and ignorant rhetoric”.
There is no mention in Thursday’s news release of whether or not the city is seeking ways to limit internet trolls from participating in community comment in the future, although KCJJ has learned there have been discussions among members of city staff about only soliciting Zoom comments for items that are on the regular agenda, and not for the open community comment sessions. There is no indication that the city is willing to do away with Zoom comments entirely.
The city has used Zoom for public comments dating back to council meetings being held online during the pandemic. The meetings have since been moved back to Harvat Hall.