We use our social media channels to engage with residents, businesses and visitors about our services and campaigns.

This page sets out the council's social media acceptable use guidelines across all its social media platforms.

A welcome and safe space

Just like our district, we want our social media channels to be a safe and welcoming space where residents are free to engage with the Council and their views are respected.

We want to hear from you, but we kindly ask that anyone who interacts with the Council or other residents on our social media posts are kind, courteous and respectful.

Responding to comments and direct messages

The Council’s social media channels are monitored periodically between 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (except Bank Holidays).

We aim to respond to comments and direct messages within one working day. Sometimes it may take us a little longer to respond if our team are busy working on other projects or events, or if we need to speak to colleagues to get a response. However, we’ll let you know that we’ve got your message and will respond as soon as we can.

Not all comments will be responded to. For example, if your post is more of a statement than a question, or an answer has already been provided, then we won’t respond.

If your enquiry requires a response from a specific service area, we will provide you with the relevant contact details for that team and ask you to contact them. This ensures that you’re dealing with the right person directly, but also provides you with the right contact details should you need to contact them again in the future.

Turning comments off

Sometimes it is necessary to turn comments off, and this is because:

• the post is ‘for information only’ and any comments could confuse the conversation around a sensitive topic
• the information we are sharing is subject to an ongoing legal process

Removing comments

Everyone has a different opinion on many issues, but any form of cyber-bullying is not acceptable on any social media platform.

Our social media platforms are here to provide information and advice to our residents and community, and we welcome comments and engagement with our posts.

We know there will be times when people will be dissatisfied with the information being shared and will want to let us know about this.

But we do draw the line at posts or messages on social media that cross the line in terms of acceptability. This includes targeting named members of staff with direct, unacceptable, criticism or personally attacking residents who have posted opposing views on our social media sites.

We will take immediate action if any content (including comments, videos, images, GIFs, attachments, links, emojis) is:

• Defamatory, slanderous, misleading or false
• Abusive or threatening - this includes swearing, adapted spellings with the same meaning, etc.
• Intimidatory towards our staff, councillors or other platform users
• Inciting hate crime or using hate crime words
• Obscene, profane, or sexually oriented
• Discriminatory in any way
• Promoting illegal activity
• Promoting individual products or services
• Completely off topic
• The same message posted multiple times, otherwise known as 'spamming'
• Controversial, irrelevant and off topic, otherwise known as 'trolling'

If your content relates to any of the list above, it will be hidden or deleted.

Depending on the content, we will also screenshot the posts and consider legal action or sending them on to the police for investigation. If we think that the content you post is explicit, we will take immediate action to delete the post and block your access to our accounts.

We will actively monitor our social media, but if you notice any offensive comments, please let us know.

Allegations against council staff and councillors

We have a zero-tolerance approach toward fraud and corruption in our organisation. If you make an allegation on our social media against the council, a member of staff or councillor, we'll ask you to report it (along with your evidence) to Warwickshire Police, or you can report it to us through our complaints process.

If you do not have sufficient evidence to substantiate your claim, then we will advise you to remove the post as it could be subject to legal action for defamation by the individuals concerned.