Social media acceptable use guidelines
These guidelines applies to all Lancaster City Council social media accounts (corporate and service-based), including our X (Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok channels.
We will always respond courteously and professionally to you, and we expect the same of those who contact us. As well as complying with the ‘terms of use’ of the associated social media platform (listed at the bottom of this page), the following standards of behaviour should be followed:
- Please respect the confidentiality of Lancaster City Council employees. Do not refer to them in a public social media post by name, publish personal information about them, or use their photographs without their permission.
- Please do not comment or reply with any sort of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexuality, sex, gender, age or disability.
- Please do not share too much personal information with us. Any issues which require you to provide personal information should be emailed to us via our online enquiry form.
- Please do not re-use imagery from our social media pages without asking us first. It is often owned by other people and we only have permission to use it on our own channels. If you wish to re-use any images please contact us via the relevant social media platform.
- Please do not spread disinformation or misinformation.
- Please do not direct messages at us which:
- Are abusive, obscene or contain offensive language
- Violate any laws or regulations
- Violate our intellectual property rights
- Persistently mention us in a negative and/or abusive context, with the aim of provoking a response
- Are promotions or advertisements of products or services
- Are the same message posted many times, otherwise known as 'spamming'
- Are controversial, irrelevant and off topic, otherwise known as 'trolling'
Our account moderators will decide if any comments break these guidelines and will hide or delete any comments that do. We reserve the right to block any users who do not follow our guidelines and to alert the social media platform and / or the police. Where relevant, we will limit the public reply and comment functions on some posts.
Pre‐election period
The council itself must be politically neutral in its communications and during the period before an election must observe certain publicity rules. Therefore, please do not use any of our pages to promote party political messages or other content. Some content may also need to be suspended in the period leading up to an election.
Endorsement
The council does 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'.
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. In most cases, it will be better to contact us directly via our online form.
Our social media platforms are not intended to be used by the media or politicians to contact us. You should contact our media team directly.
Social media is also not the appropriate avenue for raising an official complaint. Please see our complaints information or contact the service direct.
Terms of use for social media platforms
- Facebook terms of use
- Twitter terms of use
- YouTube terms of use
- Next Door terms of use
- LinkedIn terms of use
Last updated: 17 October 2024