WEST LEBANON — A social media scandal that resulted in the Burlington police chief’s resignation this week has raised questions about the way other departments use social media, both on and off duty.

And in the Upper Valley, the answers vary.

Some departments — including Lebanon, Hanover and Hartford — have social media policies that extend to employees’ personal Twitter and Facebook accounts.

“It is a fine line between someone’s freedom of speech and upholding the ethics of our profession,” Hartford Police Chief Phil Kasten said on his reason for including personal accounts in the policy.

All three departments prohibit officers from posting anything relating to operations or investigations at their departments, though they do not specifically address the use of fake accounts.

In Lebanon, the policy also addresses the language officers should use when posting on a personal account, stipulating that explicit, obscene and derogatory language is prohibited. In Norwich, Police Chief Jennifer Frank said her department also has a policy regarding social media use but declined to provide information about it.

The topic of how police use social media sites garnered attention last week after Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo admitted to a Seven Days reporter that he operated a fake Twitter account to taunt a local activist — a fact he had lied about in a previous interview with the paper. The chief resigned on Monday, and Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger appointed deputy chief Jan Wright to replace him. But just hours later, Wright was demoted after admitting that she, too, had used a social media account to harass the same activist. On Friday afternoon Weinberger named former Colchester police chief Jennifer Morrison as an interim head of the department, and announced Wright had been placed on paid administrative leave.

Grafton County Sheriff Jeff Stiegler, who was elected to the position a year ago after serving as police chief in Bradford, Vt., said that in his new role he’s doing a “complete policy and procedure overhaul,” which includes drafting new policies that will better define how officers should use social media.

The crux of his policy prohibits department employees from responding negatively to people who post critical comments on the department’s social media page. However, it’s more difficult to enact a policy that prohibits personal social media use because he doesn’t want to “police people’s private lives,” Stiegler said.

“I respect my coworkers’ rights to free speech but there’s certainly a line where we’re all public servants,” he said.

Others, like the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Department and the Royalton Police Department, don’t have policies in place, but say problems haven’t arisen so far.

“I refer to officers as living in a fishbowl,” Sullivan County Sheriff John Simonds said. “Everything we do off duty reflects what we do on duty.”

That’s one of the lessons that he discusses with his sheriff’s deputies when it comes to social media, Simonds said. His department doesn’t have specific policies in place regarding what officers should post on social media — either in a professional or personal capacity — but he said he has conversations with deputies about taking care not to say anything inflammatory online.

Royalton Police Chief Loretta Stalnaker, who said she has only a personal Facebook account, said that her department doesn’t have a policy regarding social media. But, she added, “most of my officers are not social media gurus, so they probably wouldn’t have a fake account.”

The news from Burlington has also called into question how common fake personal accounts are among police officers.

Kasten, the Hartford chief, and Lebanon Police Chief Richard Mello both said they don’t have fake or anonymous social media accounts. Stalnaker, Steigler and Simonds also said they did not have fake accounts.

When asked if she has a personal or fake social media account, Frank, the Norwich police chief, said, “I’m not going to speak to officers’ individual accounts.”

This week, police in Bellows Falls, Vt., adopted a policy that banned anonymous accounts following the Burlington story, according to WCAX. Meanwhile, a Vermont expert in social media told NBC that police departments across the board should start looking at how their officers use social media.

Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.