How we use Social Media

We use social media to communicate with residents, staff and partners. Our channels include Facebook, X, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram.

We encourage people to follow us, and we post information about our work that we think our followers will find interesting and informative.

Our social media channels are monitored during office hours only. For the most appropriate way to contact us, including during out of hours, please visit our Contact Us page.

Our social media content will include:

• Information about the council including service updates, events and campaigns
• Occasionally we will share information from other public sector/community organisations and individuals that are relevant to our followers. We have to be selective about the information we share, as it could be seen as an endorsement of a particular view, individual or organisation, and it's important that we protect our impartiality.
• We reserve the right to delete any information from our social media channels that we feel is inappropriate.

Social media house rules

When engaging with us on our social media channels, please:

• be civil, tasteful and relevant
• be respectful of other people's opinions
• don't post messages that are deliberately misleading, unlawful, libellous, harassing, defamatory, discriminatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive
• don't swear
• don't post content copied from elsewhere, for which you do not own the copyright
• don't post the same message, or very similar messages, more than once (also called 'spamming')
• don't publicise your, or anyone else's, personal information
• don't advertise products or services
• don't impersonate someone else

We will remove messages and/or comments (where function allows) from users on our social media channels who break the above rules.

Users repeatedly engaging with us using content or language which falls into the above categories will be blocked and/or reported to the associated social media platform. We will not tolerate or respond to abusive messages.

Any comments considered a safeguarding concern will be reported to the police or relevant authorities.

To keep our social media channels safe for everyone, we are utilising the moderation assist tools provided by the platform. If your comments break the house rules three times or more within 30 days, your future comments will automatically be hidden.

Pre-election periods

In the six-week run-up to an election - local, national, or general - councils have to be very careful not to do or say anything that could be seen to support any political party or candidate in any way. We will continue to publish important service announcements using social media but may have to remove responses if they are party political.

Your social media accounts

It is your responsibility to make sure that you have the appropriate privacy restrictions set up on your social media profile/page/feed to restrict what you want other people, including the council, to see. There are many online resources to help you manage your personal information on social media; do a quick internet search for 'privacy settings on social networking sites' to find them.