Impostor Facebook page ignites controversy in North Tonawanda

NORTH TONAWANDA, N.Y. (WIVB) -- City of North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec requested that two uniformed police officers question a local furniture store employee about a spoof Facebook page critical of the elected leader.

Both Tylec and North Tonawanda Police Chief Keith Glass confirmed officers visited Restful Sleepin' to speak with Jacob Quinn, a local resident who the mayor described as an "antagonist."

Tylec told News 4 Investigates the spoof Facebook page has existed for two years and continues to confuse some residents.

"My concern is if people think that this impersonator is me, and there's fake information, it can create issues, and the police department agrees," Tylec said.

Quinn denied any involvement. In fact, he said he voted for Tylec in 2021, the same year he quit the North Tonawanda Republican Committee over disagreements on the chosen candidate.

Quinn said he allowed officers access to his phone to "show that I did not make or post on the account."

"I viewed it as an attack on me," Quinn said. "I viewed it as retribution for past issues that we've had."

One of the "past issues" involved Quinn circulating a picture in 2019 that depicted Tylec as Adolph Hitler, according to the Niagara Gazette. Tylec said the photo was fake.

Glass said the spoof page "is not a crime per se," but includes "a lot of misinformation" that has confused some residents.

"Nobody is getting arrested, he is just trying to get it shut down," Glass said. "If we can figure out who is pretending to be him, he wanted us to talk to [Quinn] and see if we can get the page shut down."

The Constitution gives citizens the right to freely express their views and criticize public officials, but impersonation pages can violate Facebook's community standards and users can report impostor profiles.

"We've tried to contact Facebook, but they don't do anything," Tylec said. "You'd think it would be simple to get something like that taken down."

Facebook did not immediately respond to inquiries about its terms of service and what would cause a spoof account to be removed.

The mayor's official Facebook page has 6,800 followers. The parody account has only 121 followers and rarely includes serious content.

For example, a post on Nov. 2, 2024, states that the city would remain in daylight savings time.

"What this means is that, within the City limits, clocks will maintain the current time, but when you leave the City, please remember to set your clocks back one hour," the post said.

Ten people clicked the laugh emoji on the post, but two wondered if the post was real.

"Is this a joke? It's not April 1st," one person said.

"What? Kidding, right?" another asked.

A key disclosure on the fake page is the intro that states: "Posts are from page admins & may or may not reflect views of Austin Tylec."

First Amendment attorney Joseph Finnerty said the intro is a clear disclaimer and the page includes content with obvious signs of it being a lampoon.

"It's not up to the mayor, or the police department, to enforce Facebook's terms of use," Finnerty said. "My point is this: There is a clear disclaimer in the intro, and anybody who reads it has to at least suspect that it's a lampoon, a parody. And for a public official to dispatch the police over a matter of free expression is to me a pretty shocking thing."

Finnerty said if Facebook has declined to remove the page, that implies moderators do not believe it violates the terms of use, but taking the step to involve the local police force for this matter is an "improper reaction to somebody's expression of views about a public official."

"That's intimidating, it's chilling speech, and there's nothing wrong with the speech here," Finnerty said.

Quinn believes Tylec abused the power of his office by summonsing police to confront him at work for something that's not illegal. His next step is to speak to the full city council at a future meeting.

"This is their highest priority of the day?" Quinn said. "It was an insult to me."