Local council bodies produce guide for councils and councillors on use of social media

The Civility and Respect Project team established by the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), One Voice Wales, the Society of Local Council Clerks (SLCC) and county associations amid growing concerns about the impact of bullying, harassment, and intimidation, has produced a guide to the use of social media.

The publication, Actively addressing the issues of Civility and Respect on Social Media, was put together in partnership with Breakthrough Communications.

The project team said: “Social media is a simple, quick and effective way of communicating. It allows the user to reach whole communities at the click of a button, which is perfect for community engagement. Councils and councillors can constructively engage with communities rather than simply broadcasting information.

"But unfortunately, in a small number of cases councillors and councils can experience online abuse. Social media can become a place where individuals resort to abusive behaviour, such as aggressive language, threats, trolling and bullying. Building up your following on social media can be more difficult if there is a small number of angry voices which dominate.”

The team added that the guide was designed to support through the challenges of social media for local councils “from handling trolling to legitimate challenge and scrutiny, from smear campaigns to politics”.

It said; “The guide will help you to use positive language to tone and shape engagement and the conversation, to find common ground and engage with a variety of views.”

The guide also provides help on escalating issues, deleting and moderating comments, blocking abusive users, reporting online abuse and legal matters to the police or social media platforms and deciding when it is time to get off of social media.

The guidance can be downloaded here.