1. Council
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Social media

The Council’s main accounts

Why we use social media

We use social media as another way to engage and communicate with you.

You can stay up to date with our latest news, information and events via our main Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Related documents

Responding and acceptable use

We monitor and update our accounts during normal office hours, Monday to Friday, and not over a weekend.

We'll respond to your post as soon as we can.

Sometimes in emergency situations, we'll give updates and alerts outside of normal office hours.

If you'd like to contact us via social media, we ask that you:

  • be civil, tasteful and relevant
  • not post messages that are unlawful, libellous, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive
  • not swear
  • not publicise your, or anyone else's, personal information, such as contact details
  • not impersonate someone else
  • not post politically motivated or political campaigning material

We reserve the right to remove and not respond to any contributions that break these rules.

Persistently breaking these rules can lead to you being banned or blocked from our accounts.

Following on Twitter and retweeting

When we follow accounts on Twitter it:

  • is based on relevance and usefulness to the council
  • doesn't mean we endorse any individual, organisation or comments

We will only retweet:

  • messages from accounts we follow
  • messages we think will be helpful or interesting to our followers

Social media and the pre-election period

The pre-election period in the United Kingdom is specifically the time between an announced election and the final election results.

During this time, there are extra restrictions placed on the council on the publicity it can issue.

Publicity, including social media and press releases issued to print and broadcast, should not deal with controversial issues or report views, proposals or recommendations in such a way that identifies them with individual members or groups of members.

However, it is acceptable for the council to respond in appropriate circumstances to events and legitimate service enquiries provided that their answers are factual and not party political. Therefore, during the pre election period, we will continue to publish important service announcements using social media but may have to remove responses if they are overtly party political.

All social media platforms run by North Tyneside Council staff are subject to the rules of the pre election period. This is in accordance with The Code of Recommended Practice on Local Authority Publicity (Local Government Act 1986).

Please note, restrictions of the pre election period apply to press releases sent out by North Tyneside Council. They do not apply to items issued by party groups or individual members themselves and which are clearly identified as party political releases.

Leisure, culture and tourism accounts

Education and young people accounts

Business and enterprise accounts