Social media guidelines
West Lothian Council operates a number of different social media profiles, each looking to provide the residents of West Lothian with updates on council business, activity of our partners and general news from around the area.
The team behind these accounts are here to help where we can and we want these social media channels to be full of useful and insightful conversations.
The council accept that those using these Social Media Channels have a right to free speech however, you are wholly responsible for any content you post including content that you choose to share.
We will remove messages and/or disable comments (where function allows) including reporting and/or blocking users on our social media channels who post messages at us which we believe are, including those which:
- bully, harass or intimidate any individual, group of individuals or organisation
- are unlawful, libelous, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented or racially offensive
- infringe or violate someone else's rights
- breach the law
- discuss ongoing legal proceedings which may result in allegations of contempt of court
- may result in the council breaching the legal restrictions on using council resources to produce or facilitate party political publicity, especially in periods immediately prior to elections
- are spam
- advertise products or services
- are irrelevant, off-topic or provide false information
- are disruptive and repetitive.
Comments that are made that are inaccurate and/or misleading will be deleted. The council will not permit misinformation on our social media.
The council may also remove or block any user who:
- post unacceptable comments, such as those listed above
- uses offensive images as their profile picture, for example, sexually explicit images
- has an offensive user name.
- These lists are not exhaustive and will be updated as necessary.
The council reserves the right to report any user to the police or other appropriate authority in relation to anything done in breach of its Site Use policy.
Contacting us via social media
As stated above, we will try and be as informative as we can, and will provide factual information, clarification to comments or signpost people to where they can get more help or information where we can.
However, the council's social media accounts are not customer service tools, and we are unable to answer specific enquiries.
Anyone who needs to contact the council urgently is advised to do so via our online form or phone 01506 280000.
