Gunnedah Shire Council Social Media Acceptable User Guidelines

Gunnedah Shire Council is committed to upholding the principles of openness, relevance, accuracy and respect in accordance with the Council theme of Engaging and Supporting our Community.

Hours of monitoring

Gunnedah Shire Council will monitor this page between the hours of 8.30am and 5pm Monday to Friday. If your matter is urgent, please contact Council 24 hours a day, 7 days a week on (02) 6740 2100.

This social media platform is not the approved method to make complaints about Council or Council officials. To register a complaint or seek Council action on a matter, please ring our Customer Service Team on (02) 6740 2100, or email council@gunnedah.nsw.gov.au

Removal or “hiding” of content, and banning

Social media users must not post or share comments, photos, videos, electronic recordings or other information that:

• is defamatory, offensive, humiliating, threatening or intimidating to Council officials or members of the public,
• contains profane language or is sexual in nature,
• constitutes harassment and/or bullying within the meaning of the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW or is unlawfully discriminatory,
• contains content about Council, Council officials or members of the public that is misleading or deceptive,
• breaches the privacy of Council officials or members of the public,
• contains allegations of suspected breaches of Council’s Code of Conduct or information about the consideration of a matter under the Procedures for the Administration of the Model Code of Conduct for Local Councils in NSW,
• violates an order made by a court,
• breaches copyright,
• advertises, endorses or solicits commercial products or businesses,
• constitutes spam, or
• would be in breach of the rules of the social media platform.

If you upload content of this nature, it will be removed or “hidden” by the moderator and, where practicable, you will be advised of the reason for the removal and your rights of review.

If you upload content that is removed or “hidden” on three occasions, you may be blocked or banned from all Council social media platforms.

You will, where practicable, be advised of the intention to block or ban you and be given a chance to respond. The duration of the block or ban will be determined by the General Manager and you will be advised, where practicable, of the duration of the block or ban and informed of your rights of review.

Where a moderator is reasonably satisfied that the person’s further engagement on the social media platform poses a risk to health and safety or another substantive risk (such as the uploading of defamatory content), an immediate interim block or ban from all platforms may be imposed for up to 10 working days or as determined by the General Manager.

Where a person that is the subject of a block or ban continues to engage on a Council social media platform using an alternative social media account, profile, avatar etc, a moderator may block or ban the person from the platform(s) immediately. No further action is required in respect of notifying the user of the block or ban.

Where engagement is reasonably judged to be spam, a moderator may block or ban that user immediately and no further action is required in respect of notifying the user of the block or ban.

Your rights of review

When content is removed or hidden, or you have been blocked or banned, you may request a review of the decision by writing to the General Manager and stating the grounds on which the request is being made.

This request can be addressed to:

The General Manager, Gunnedah Shire Council, PO Box 63, Gunnedah NSW 2380

Or emailed (Attention: The General Manager) to: