Social media

Social media house rules

The communications and marketing team is responsible for the council’s social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

We would like you to feel you can visit our accounts for important information about the council’s work, decisions and services and with any questions about those services. We also want you to join the conversation and to comment on what we and others are saying. While we read all comments and aim to be as responsive as possible, unfortunately we cannot respond to every individual comment. We will however ensure that any common themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant people.

However, we do expect our followers to afford us the same courtesy that we offer them, so we have a short set of house rules, which will help everyone to understand what we consider to be acceptable and unacceptable.

Political comments during the pre-election period

The council’s social media accounts are run by council officers explaining services, initiatives and decisions taken and are not political. During the pre-election period councils are particularly vigilant in monitoring posts on their accounts from third parties and anything that could be seen as support for any political party or candidate will be deleted.

What you say is public

You are wholly responsible for any content that you choose to post or share on our social media accounts. Any posts containing misleading or deceptive information will be removed

Keep it clean

We will not accept swearing, abusive or offensive language and will remove any comments that contain them. This includes racist, sexist, sexually explicit, homophobic or otherwise offensive remarks.

We also reserve the right to remove comments that are likely to disrupt, provoke, attack or offend others.

Be kind

We won't tolerate any form of bullying, harassment or victimisation of other users or of our staff or councillors and we take this behaviour extremely seriously. Please let us know if you feel people are using our page to bully or intimidate you and we will remove the offending comments and consider removing that person from our site.

Facebook also offers advice and help to people who feel they are being bullied. Type in the word 'bullying' to Facebook's Help Centre for further information and advice.

What to do if you don't agree with comments by others

The council supports and promotes free speech. Members of the public are encouraged to submit comments on our social media channels in the spirit of free and open dialogue and debate. If you disagree with a comment on our page, you are welcome to add a reply to express this, provided you stay within these house rules. However, if you do wish to formally complain about material posted, by another member of the public, you can let us know by emailing communications@basingstoke.gov.uk.

False identities

If it's clear you aren't who you say you are and are impersonating someone else then not only are you breaking Facebook and Twitter's rules but you’re also breaking our house rules and we will remove any content you've posted and may block you from our page.

Please don’t spam us

Spam is the term that describes any kind of unwanted online communication. If you spam our page we reserve the right to delete it and may ban persistent spammers. This is because spam detracts from the messages we, and others who use the page, are trying to communicate and can spoil other peoples’ experiences of using our page.

Respect confidentiality

Please don’t post confidential or private information on our pages, as they are a public forum. This includes sharing your own phone number, email address or other contact details, or anyone else’s. If you need to share this kind of information with us, please send it in a private message.

Report abuse

If you are offended by another user's post please report it to Facebook or Twitter etc. If you would like us to remove it, please contact us at communications@basingstoke.gov.uk and we will look into the issue.

Removing content

We support and encourage free speech and don't want to have to remove any content, so please try and keep your contributions within these house rules.

If you repeatedly break the house rules, we will consider banning you from our page.

If you have any questions you can contact us by emailing communications@basingstoke.gov.uk.