Social Media
Introduction - Use of social media
Social networking sites are one way of engaging with our local
community. We will use social media to inform people about
what we are doing and to discuss local issues.
Facebook
Facebook is a free social networking website to connect and
interact with other people. We will use Facebook to raise
awareness of what is happening in Wyre Forest, encourage
participation in consultations, promote local events and discuss
issues.
Twitter
Twitter is a free micro-blogging site that allows users to send
and read other users’ text based posts (up to 140
characters). We will post updates about what is going on in
the district, the work we do and local events.
Social Media Rules and Guidelines
Monitoring, responding and
replying
We will try to respond to as many comments as possible but this
won’t always be possible. Our social media profiles are not
monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and it is easy to miss
posts during busy social media traffic.
If you would like an individual response or if you have a
serious or urgent enquiry, please contact
us.
Where significantly inaccurate comments are made about the
council, we will publish a correction so that others are not
misled. We also reserve the right to remove such
comments.
Where possible, we will rely on the measures of protection and
intervention which the social networking site already has in place
(e.g. against illegal, harmful or offensive content), for example
by flagging comments or alerting them to any breaches of the site’s
terms and conditions.
We also have some of our own rules.
We reserve the right to remove any contributions that break the
rules or guidelines of the relevant community, or:
- Are not civil, tasteful and relevant.
- Are unlawful, libelous, harassing, defamatory, abusive,
threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or
racially offensive.
- Contain swearing.
- Contain content copied from elsewhere, for which you do not own
the copyright.
- Are repeat postings, or very similar messages (also called
"spamming").
- Publicise your, or anyone else's, personal information, such as
contact details.
- Advertise products or services.
- Impersonate someone else.
Libel
Please take care not to make libellous statements. In law this
means a statement that lowers the reputation of a person or
organisation in the eyes of a reasonable person. By publishing such
a statement we can both get into serious trouble. We will therefore
take down any statement that could be deemed to be libellous.
Pre-election period
In the six week run up to an election - local, general or
European - councils have to very careful not to do or say anything
that could seen in any way to support any political party or
candidate. We will continue to publish important service
announcements using social media but may have to remove responses
if they are overtly party political or that seeks or could be
perceived to seek to influence people to vote for a particular
candidate.
