Social media - acceptable use guidelines

Our social media accounts

We use social media to help share information and respond to residents. We have official channels on:

We welcome comments, discussion and engagement from social media users, but will not tolerate hateful, offensive or abusive comments.

Unacceptable behaviour

We will block accounts which interact with the council in a hateful, offensive or abusive way. This includes comments on council posts or when the council is tagged into a post made by someone else.

We will block users who write comments that include:

  • swearing or offensive language
  • sexism
  • misogyny
  • racism
  • xenophobia
  • homophobia
  • transphobia
  • ageism
  • ableism 
  • intolerance of religion or religious belief
  • inciting hate or harm - including discrimination based on protected characteristics
  • false or misleading information
  • harassment
  • threats
  • personal or defamatory comments about individuals, including council staff and councillors
  • spam or content unrelated to council business

We’ll also delete, hide and report comments we believe to be offensive or spreading misinformation. 

Threats, harassment and abuse will be reported to the police. Sharing malicious or offensive posts on social media may also be found to be an offence under the Malicious Communications Act.

If you are blocked

We will not notify people directly when they are blocked or discuss why on social media.

We record the name or username, date, reason and save a screengrab of the offensive comment when a user is blocked.

If you believe you’ve been blocked in error, contact us by email with details and we will look into what has happened. Users that have been blocked for the above behaviours will not be interacted with by email. This does not affect your right to make a complaint.

If you are blocked from interacting with the council online and believe the action taken to be unfair you can make a complaint.

This policy is reviewed annually.