Social Media PolicyPolitique entouor les Médias Sociaux

Internet & Social Media Acceptable Use Policy

Parish of St Brelade Internet and Social Media Acceptable Use Policy

Our Rules

The Parish of St Brelade use social media and would love for you to ‘follow’ us. We use it to provide news, information on events, jobs, updates on Parish services and much more.

Online communities generally have their own “rules” which we follow and therefore we reserve the right to remove any contributions that break the rules of that community, or those which are not in line with our general guidelines which are:

• Be civil, tasteful and relevant
• Do not post messages that are unlawful, libelous, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive
• Do not swear
• Do not post content copied from elsewhere, for which you do not own the copyright
• Do not post the same message, or very similar messages, more than once (also called ‘spamming’)
• Do not publicise your own or anyone else’s personal information, such as contact details
• Do not advertise products or services
• Do not pretend to be someone else

The Parish of St Brelade reserve the right to restrict or remove any content that is deemed in violation of this social media policy or any applicable law.

Monitoring accounts, responding and replying

Social media and technology in general is becoming an increasingly integral part of Parish communications. We recognise the opportunities provided by social media, but also bear in mind that many parishioners wish to continue using the more traditional methods of communication. Our standards are the same, regardless of whether the communication is via social media, website, telephone, letter, email or face-to-face.

We monitor our Parish Twitter account Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm (except Bank Holidays and public holidays). If you contact us via these channels during these times we will endeavor to reply as soon as possible; there could be delays on some requests whilst we investigate, but we will try to keep you updated.

If your query is serious, urgent, or involves personal details, please let us know by contacting the Parish Hall on 01534 741141, visiting in person or emailing us at [email protected].

Deleting, liking, following and re-tweeting

Generally, we will not remove posts that are made on our social media; however, we will consider removing posts or blocking users or accounts that breach the guidelines outlined above, without any explanation. After 12 months the owner of the account can appeal the decision to block.

Please don’t be offended if we don’t ‘Like’ or ‘Follow’ you on social media. This doesn’t mean that we are not interested in what you have to say, it’s just that the numbers can get too high for us to manage.

We sometimes ‘Follow’ people who provide information that is relevant to our work as a Parish, or those whose information we can pass on for the benefit of our parishioners and others.

Occasionally, we’ll try and lend our support to local, national or international campaigns. There will also be times we’ll need to Like or Follow an account in order to take part in conversations.

If we Like or Follow someone and re-tweet their information, it doesn’t mean that we endorse them. We try and re-tweet information that we think will be of interest to our followers; however, please don’t be offended if we don’t re-tweet something you want us to.

Defamation

Please take care not to make defamatory statements. In law this means a statement that lowers the reputation of a person or organisation in the eyes of a reasonable person. We will therefore take down any statement that could be deemed to be defamatory.

Election period

The Parish administration itself, as opposed to the Connétable, is politically neutral in its communications. Therefore, please do not use any of our pages to promote political messages or other content. This is a particularly sensitive issue in the run-up to an election, and we need to be mindful of how content may be perceived (regardless of what was intended).

The Parish will continue to publish important service announcements using social media but may have to remove any comments that, in its view, may compromise its obligation to maintain political neutrality.

Contacting us

If you have a concern about something posted on a page that the Parish is responsible for, or just wish to contact us, you can use social media channels. You are also very welcome to raise any matter in person at the Parish Hall, by phone on (01534) 741141, or by email at [email protected].

Please note:

• If you have an urgent concern you should not use social media platforms to raise this – as it is not monitored continuously, especially outside of normal working hours
• Unless stated otherwise, the views/comments given on any of our social media sites may not necessarily reflect the views of the Parish
• The Parish of St Brelade is committed to providing the best possible services for parishioners and those visiting our Parish. Your feedback is important to us, please use the contact details provided above
• The Parish of St Brelade produces and holds a wide range of information. We try to publish as much of this information as possible. Please take a look at the information already published before making an information request
• Any details you provide to register with the Parish for social media such as Twitter will only be used for that purpose. We do not cross reference these details with any other information held by the Parish