House rules:
The following house rules must be clearly accessible on all Council social media sites:
Our principles:
We are committed to upholding and promoting the following principles of social media engagement:
Openness – our social media platforms are places where anyone can share and discuss issues that are relevant to our Council and the community we represent and serve
Relevance – we will ensure our social media platforms are kept up to date with informative content about our Council and community
Accuracy – the content we upload onto our social media platforms and any other social media platform will be a source of truth for our Council and community and we will prioritise the need to correct inaccuracies when they occur. We will uphold and promote the behavioural standards contained in this policy and our Council’s code of conduct when using our social media platforms and any other social media platform. Moderating our page:
We encourage you to discuss and share your opinions on the things we post and welcome your comments, however we do moderate our page to ensure comments, photos, videos, etc do not contain anything that is:
• is defamatory, offensive, humiliating, threatening or intimidating to council officials or members of the
public,
• contains profane language or is sexual in nature
• constitutes harassment and/or bullying within the meaning of the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW, or is unlawfully discriminatory
• contains content about the Council, council officials or members of the public that is misleading or deceptive
• breaches the privacy of council officials or members of the public
• contains allegations of suspected breaches of the Council’s code of conduct or information about the consideration of a matter under the Procedures for the Administration of the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW,
• violates an order made by a court
• breaches copyright
• advertises, endorses or solicits commercial products or business,
• constitutes spam
• would be in breach of Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php)
Comments that contravene these requirements will be deleted. Repeated incidents may result in a user being banned or blocked from our page. Right of review:
Users who have their comments removed or are banned or blocked from the page do have a right of review. If you have a comment removed, or are banned or blocked from our page, you can request a review of this decision. This request must be made in writing to the General Manager and state the grounds on which the request is being made. This can be sent to the General Manager, PO Box 482, Taree 2430 or emailed to [email protected] with the subject line ‘review of social media ban’. Privacy:
We advise users not to provide personal information via comments on social media. If you wish to share particular details please do so via email to [email protected]
Comments may be moderated to ensure personal information is not contained. For details on our privacy statement see https://www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/Your-Council/Privacy
Monitoring:
This platform is monitored during business hours, Monday to Friday. During emergencies it may be monitored outside of these hours, however the community should not rely on this and always get their information from the official response agency, NSW Police, SES, RFS. Complaints:
This platform is not the place to make complaints about Council or Council officials. To make a complaint see our website https://www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/Contact-us/Compliments-and-feedback
Service issues or requests:
This platform is not the place to make service requests or report required works, to do this go to the ‘report and request’ function of our website https://www.midcoast.nsw.gov.au/Contact-us/Report-and-request
