Social media: our usage guidelines and rules

See also:

How our social media accounts are monitored

Our social media accounts are monitored from time to time by the communications team. We will always try to answer your query as quickly as possible, or direct you to our website where appropriate. You may be able to find your answer quicker by using the search box located at the top of this webpage.

With all of our social media accounts, monitoring only takes place during office hours of 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.

For more info on alternative ways to contact us (or out of hours / emergency contact details) please see:

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Community rules

Across all of our social media platforms, we want to create an informative, safe online community for all.

Please do:

Get involved in posts and have your say. Discussions involving different members of the community are a great way for us to see what everyone thinks about what we're doing.
Feel free to spread the word and share our posts.
Tag friends and family in posts to inform them about what is happening in their local area.
Treat others as you would like to be treated.

Please don't:

Post people's personal information on our channels - whether it's yours or someone else's. If you need to send some information to help with your query please use the relevant online contact form, or email it to us at news@adur-worthing.gov.uk (we don't check direct messages)
Advertise your products or services on our page
Spam our social media profiles with the same message multiple times
Spread misinformation on our channels
Make comments that we consider unacceptable.

Unacceptable comments

We will not tolerate offensive, abusive or hateful comments, or those that are clearly defamatory. We will remove comments that we consider to be unacceptable, and we may ban from our social media accounts those who write unacceptable messages.

We are defining unacceptable comments as those that include:

Swearing (including the use of symbols to replace letters in offensive language)
Threats, threatening language or harassment
Incitement to hate or harm people
Racism
Homophobia
Transphobia
Religious intolerance
Sexism
Ageism
Ableism
Xenophobia
Defamatory messages about people, even if they are not named specifically

We understand that people may at times post comments that include inaccurate information. We will consider these on a case by case basis. We may respond to some messages to correct false information, but if false or misleading information is repeatedly posted we reserve the right to take down such comments and ban from our social media channels anyone who we consider to be acting maliciously.

We may turn off comments on specific posts to help keep our social channels safe and welcoming to all.

We will consider reporting to Sussex Police any posts that involve threats, harassment, abuse or which could involve offences under the Malicious Communications Act.

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What content do we share?

We share content that will benefit our communities in Adur and Worthing, including from other social media accounts which provide relevant information to our work as local authorities, or whose information will be beneficial and relevant to our followers/subscribers.

As part of this, we will try to support local and national campaigns too.

A follow, like or share of content from a non-council managed social media account does not mean that we endorse that account, product or brand.

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