Social media community standards

Contacting us via social media

Our responses to replies, comments and direct messages depend on the individual service. Even if we do not reply, we are listening and will act on or pass on your comments as appropriate.

Our social media platforms are not intended to be used by the media or politicians to contact us, in this circumstance, please contact our Press team - News Room

We welcome constructive discussion, but are not required to platform posts which do not meet our community standards. We reserve the right to remove any contributions that break these rules:

• Be civil, tasteful, and relevant.
• Do not post messages that are unlawful, libellous, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive.
• Do not swear, use abusive language, or use block capital text formatting intended to convey aggression. 
• Do not post the same message, or very similar messages, more than once, also called "spamming".
• Do not intentionally spread misinformation. 
• Do not encourage others into unlawful or uncivil behaviour.
• Do not bait others by posting inflammatory comments designed to provoke offensive replies.
• Do not publicise your, or anyone else's, personal information, such as contact details.
• Do not post content copied from elsewhere, for which you do not own the copyright.
• Do not advertise products or services.
• Do not impersonate someone else.

This list is not exhaustive, and comments are assessed on a case-by-case basis. Removals may include comment hiding, deletion, or turning comments off on posts.

Any posts that break these rules may result in individuals being blocked from interacting with our pages. 

Pre‐election period

The Councils, as opposed to their political administrations, must be politically neutral in their communications.  The pre-election period, previously known as 'purdah', describes the period of time immediately before elections or referendums when specific restrictions on communications activity are in place. You will see less outgoing posts on our pages during these times.

Complaints

If you have a concern about something posted on a page that the Council is responsible for, you should Make a complaint

Council approach to connections on social media

There is no fixed approach on who the Councils will have in its network, but as a guide, the connections may include the profiles of the following

• Local councillors or any other politician commenting on matters of interest
• public, private and voluntary sector partner organisations
• community organisations and campaigning groups
• media and journalists
• any other commentators or opinion formers that the Councils may want to follow.

Endorsement

The Councils do not endorse any individual or organisation merely by virtue of creating a social media connection, regardless of the terms used by social media providers such as 'follow' or 'like'.

Removal

Once connected, the Councils may review and remove any connections or follows made previously at their discretion.