Mayor Keisuke Hiwatashi of Takeo, Japan, a city located in Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyushu, frowns when people leave comments on municipal websites (especially those with blogs or other interactive content) with anonymous names and handles.

“When people give their opinions or ask questions, they should take responsibility for this as adults, and this should be done using their real names,” said the mayor at a press conference announcing his city’s migration from their traditional website to Facebook.

Not unlike the Facebook page for Ari Herzog & Associates, anyone can view Takeo’s page — but you have to be a Facebook user who “likes” the page to add comments and share feedback.

Here is a screenshot of Takeo's new website.

Naoyuki Miyaguchi, a city spokesman, said, “There were some doubts at first when we were thinking of changing to Facebook because it could only be accessed by those who had an account. For this reason, there was some opposition as it would limit access to city information for some citizens. But since we were considering the shift, Facebook changed its rules to make pages viewable to anybody, and from that point on it was a go.”

Over 6,500 people (a respectable 13% of Takeo’s 50,000 residents) like the page today and the number is likely to explode.

Will other cities follow? Should they? Should yours?

Thank you for reading! If you are inspired to add a comment with your thoughts, please visit Why a Municipal Website Moved to Facebook in your browser.  Ari Herzog provides communications services to the nonprofit and public sectors, and encourages you to join his Facebook community.