Scottish Government and Executive Agency policy regarding social media posts: FOI release

Information requested

Does the Scottish Government and related agencies have a policy of removing comments from social media? If so, what is this policy?

Regardless if a policy exists or not, what criteria does the Scottish Government and related agencies use to remove comments from social media posts?

Response

The Scottish Government's social media moderation policy and criteria are as follows:

All opinions and contributions are welcome, and we will not block, moderate and/or report users as long as they:

1. Respect other people. Comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person's character.
2. Don't incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristic.
3. Don't include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity.
4. Don't reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details.
5. Don't break the law - this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright.
6. Are reasonably concise, and don't constitute spamming of the site.
7. Don't advertise commercial products and services.
8. Don't impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation.
9. Are on-topic. Please don't post messages that are unrelated to this channel.

You also asked for the policy and criteria used by related agencies. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. We do not hold this information on related agencies.

This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.

However, should you wish to contact individual agencies you can find contact details at https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.