Social media policy

Our social media channels are treated as a place where you can keep up to date with information related to Council services, facilities and what’s happening across the district.

You can also give us feedback on local issues and let us know if you spot anything that needs attention. Please bear in mind that a post on this forum is not an official submission to Council (although all comments are passed on to the relevant department).

Rules of Engagement

Users on our social media channels are welcome to comment and ask questions. We aim to answer any enquiries as soon as possible. In the interest of maintaining a safe space for everyone, we will not tolerate the following content:

  • Personal attacks on individuals (including Council staff).

  • Harmful content which includes (but is not limited to) disinformation, swearing, hate speech, threatening, offensive, defamatory or otherwise unlawful content.

  • Unreasonable off-topic comments by a single user.

  • Campaigning, spam, or sharing unnecessary repetitive posts.

  • Formal complaints (visit our Complaints page for the correct process).

People may have mixed feelings about these rules, and that’s okay. They are consistent with Facebook’s Community Standards, the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015, and our own council policies.

Supporting these rules ensures that we can have constructive conversations with each other and encourages the whole community to engage.

Any users who continually violate these rules may be temporarily banned from accessing our social media channels. If this happens, we will reach out to users privately to tell them why it was removed and make a record of it.

Serious breaches may be reported to Facebook or the Police.

Elections

Queenstown Lakes District Council's social media channels must not be used for electioneering purposes. Any post - positive or negative - made by any individual specifically relating to their own - or someone else's - nomination, intention to run for Council or election campaign, will be removed immediately


Contacting us on social media

Queenstown Lakes District Council welcomes suggestions, feedback and ideas from everyone in our community, and we endeavour to join the conversation where possible. Please be aware that sometimes we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via our social media channels. 

We generally update and monitor our social media accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday. If you are requesting a service on social media, we suggest you to contact us by phone or email:

services@qldc.govt.nz 

If you require an immediate response, please call us on 03 441 0499.