Have Facebook and TikTok become the new forum for conducting political debates by public officials? That's at least one of the questions faced by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in two recent decisions, Penncrest School District v. Cagle, 293 A.3d 783 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2023), and Wyoming Borough v. Boyer, No. 715 C.D. 2021 (Pa. Cmwlth. July 27, 2023). As public engagement continues to move "online" the topic of how to treat public officials' emails, text messages and social media pages has become a hot button topic. Earlier this year, in Penncrest, the court considered what to do about these developing issues. In a June 2021 RTKL request, the requester in Penncrest sought Facebook posts and comments "related to homosexuality and Penncrest School District, its officials, employees, or students or its curriculum, physical resources, or electronic resources … including posts or comments removed" or deleted by two specific members of the school board for a specific time period. The respondent district denied the request on the basis that no such posts or comments existed for any Penncrest-owned Facebook accounts. On appeal, the OOR determined it was immaterial as to whether the agency controlled the Facebook page, but that it would review the contents of the page to determine whether it was used as a significant platform by an elected official or employee to conduct or discuss official business. The lower court affirmed and reasoned it did not matter if the posts were made on the district's Facebook account or a member's private account. The court reasoned that the posts became a "record" if created by persons acting as school board members and if they contained information related to school business.

Penncrest appealed to the Commonwealth Court raising three issues: that social media posts and comments from board members' personal social media accounts are not related to the business of the board or the district; that board members acting in their private capacity as private citizens are able to express their personal opinions by posting or commenting on matters of personal interest via personal social media without creating a record subject to disclosure; and that public attendees of a board meeting who opined about the members' social media posts and comments do not create a record.