In a social network experience marked by little socializing but plenty of network snafus, Gov. Rick Scott held his first Facebook townhall Tuesday night answering a few questions from the hundreds pelted at him.

Most of the Internet crowd was rough. The governor was quizzed about his recommended cuts to schools, merit pay for teachers, reducing pensions, and his reluctance to engage the conventional media.

One  Facebook friend from Tampa, Tony Cona, wrote the governor saying, “I’m taking bets right now that in the end you will prove to be the worse thing that ever happened to the state of Florida.”

As he did with a Twitter town hall a few weeks ago, Scott sidestepped his toughest critics. But he did try to defend some of his policies.

While the governor has gotten heat for blocking implementation of a prescription drug database to combat pill mills flourishing in South Florida, Scott on Facebook voiced sympathy.

“This is a significant (problem) for the State. A friend of mine just lost his daughter. We need to focus on the distribution of “narcotics and close down pill mills that are improperly distributing prescriptions,” Scott wrote.

The governor also pushed back in support of his and the Legislature’s support for tying teacher pay to student performance.

“My experience with teachers is they would like to be measured, the measurement need to be fair, and the most effective teachers need to be rewarded with both recognition and better pay,” Scott responded. (more…)

Gov. Rick Scott, a social media savant, is holding his second virtual town hall meeting this evening – this time on Facebook.

Scott held a similar forum on Twitter several weeks after he took office in January.

The Facebook event will take place from 7:15 to 7:45 p.m. tonight.

A Twitter prankster posting as Scott – @FLGovRickScott – is confusing some followers of the REAL governor – @FLGovScott. No word yet if there’s a fake Facebook member poking fun at Scott.

Gov. Rick Scott added five more high-level workers to his staff – including one fired by his former gubernatorial opponent Alex Sink – as the new governor continues to put together an administration at the end of his second official week on the job.

Scott hired Melinda Miguel to come back to her old post as inspector general, which she also held under Gov. Charlie Crist.

And Scott tapped Doug Darling as his third deputy chief of staff (Darling will be in charge of Cabinet affairs). Then-Chief Financial Officer Sink axed Darling, who was her chief of the Division of Accounting and Auditing, for failing to discover a scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars. The plan was revealed by an auditing firm. Darling, a former Marine, later went to work as chief of staff and, until now, inspector general for the Department of Environmental Protection.

Jesse Panuccio, an associate at Cooper & Kirk, and C.B Upton, general counsel for the Department of State, will join Scott’s legal team.

And Brian Hughes will go to work for Scott’s spokesman Brian Burgess. Hughes recently served as spokesman for Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater’s winning campaign. Hughes also served in the military and is a decorated Air Force vet, according to a press release on Scott’s Facebook page.

The House Majority Office sent out a tongue-in-cheek e-mail today trying to steer fans to its new Facebook page.

Earlier this week, House Majority Leader Adam Hasner invited fans to do a Facebook search for “Florida House Majority Office” to check out his new site and join up.

But a search turned up a variety of Facebook groups – including “Stop Horse Slaughter and Murder in Mexico!” – none of which was the Majority Office’s.

“Thanks in part to Dara Kam of the Palm Beach Post, many of you know that a glitch in the Facebook search box leads folks to pages other than our own. For the record, the House Majority Office is fully supportive of stopping horse slaughter and murder in Mexico, and is proud that we have done our part to raise awareness of the issue. But our intention was to send you to our new Facebook page, not one on Mexican equines,” House Majority Office Staff Director Todd Reid wrote in an e-mail.

Reid said his staff have tried to get Facebook to fix the glitch, but in the meantime wanted to advertise a direct link to the site: www.facebook.com/FLGOPMajority.

Fans of the Florida House Republicans can follow the Majority Office on Facebook but it takes a little doing to find them.

Majority Leader Adam Hasner, R-Boca Raton, today sent out an e-mail inviting folks to become a fan of his office’s Facebook group. To join, simply enter “Florida House Majority Office” in the Facebook search bar.

“To get the Right point of view of what’s happening in Tally, follow the activities of the Republicans in the Florida House,” Hasner’s message read.

But an attempt to do that resulted in seven groups (none of them Hasner’s), including “Stop Horse Slaughter and Murder in Mexico!”

The search result also included the “Win with Alma” group, supporters of Democrat Alma Gonzalez, a union lawyer who ran for the Leon County commission. She lost.

The Majority Office also launched a Twitter site: FLGOPMajority.