Life in a small town has its own specifics, and nowadays most public happenings are concentrated in local Facebook groups. In our town of six thousand people, there was a group called “What’s Happening in Our Town” with over four thousand members. For years, it was a useful space—people searched for lost dogs, sold surplus from their gardens, warned about road closures, or shared photos from community events. The group proudly described itself as an “open and independent forum for all neighbors.” But behind the scenes, reality was far less idyllic.
The main administrator was Mr. Zdeněk, who, by coincidence, was serving his second term as deputy mayor and chairman of the construction committee at the town hall. As long as the posts were about lost cats or cake recipes, the group ran smoothly. But as soon as anyone touched on how the town was run, Zdeněk started enforcing strict censorship under the guise of “maintaining polite discussion.”
The whole conflict escalated in the autumn after the water main reconstruction on our street. The heavy machinery from the construction company completely destroyed the road edges, there were fifteen-centimeter-deep unpaved holes full of sharp gravel in the asphalt, and the trench across the entire width of the road was only filled with dirt, which sank by ten centimeters after the first rain. Cars scraped their undercarriages every time they crossed, and mothers with strollers had to walk through mud on the grass.
When nothing changed even three weeks after the excavators left and the town hall kept ignoring the issue, I took photos of the broken section, the holes, and the sunken drain. I uploaded the photos to the community group and added a completely factual, polite message: “Hello, I’m reaching out to the town leadership regarding Pod Lesem street. It’s been a month since the water main work finished, the trenches have sunk, and people are damaging their cars. When will the final asphalt be laid and the road edges cleaned up according to the project schedule?”
The post got an immediate response. Within two hours, over forty comments appeared from neighbors in nearby streets, confirming the same experience—damaged wheel rims, dust, and zero communication from the construction department. It was a legitimate civic discussion backed by real photos.
But then administrator Zdeněk intervened.
Instead of responding factually as deputy mayor and providing a timeline for the asphalt work, he used his admin power to silence the issue. On Friday evening, he locked the entire discussion, deleted dozens of supportive comments from locals, and posted a public statement under my original post in bold: “This post violates the group’s rules on spreading negativity and political attacks. The author is a known troublemaker who deliberately discredits the work of the town and construction companies right before project completion. Instead of constructive action at the office, he just stirs up panic on social media. This group is for neighborhood community, not for throwing dirt at the town.”
As soon as he finished, I was permanently banned from the group with my profile blocked, so I had no chance to defend myself or refute his lies.
I sat at my screen in shock at such an arrogant abuse of power. A person paid by taxpayers had turned the biggest community forum into his private PR board, where inconvenient reality was instantly trashed and critics were branded as public enemies.
But this move backfired badly. Zdeněk underestimated one thing—in a small town, information doesn’t stop with the click of a button online. People who saw the whole situation before it was deleted were so disgusted by the deputy mayor’s behavior that they immediately began sharing screenshots in private messages and on their own profiles. Over the weekend, a new, completely independent group was created with a strict ban on political officials as moderators, and within three days, half the town’s residents had joined.
At the next city council meeting, ten angry citizens from our street showed up with printed photos of the road and the deleted discussion. Zdeněk sat at the table red in the face and, under public pressure, had to promise immediate repairs within five days. It was a clear example that the arrogance of local politicians and censorship on social networks only work until people lose patience. Anyone who tries to sweep a broken road under the rug by calling citizens troublemakers will eventually become the one everyone in the street starts avoiding.
