Social media use

Guidance and moderation information for DWP social media channels, including specific guidance for Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Social media moderation policy

We encourage and welcome open, lively debate that is civil and relevant. We won’t suppress legitimate debate of relevant issues.

We also want to ensure people’s safety online, so we’ve provided the following guidelines.

You should:

  • respect other comments and individuals – comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature, and should not constitute a personal attack on a person’s character
  • be reasonably concise, and not spam the channel
  • use English, unfortunately we can’t moderate comments in other languages
  • stay on-topic

You must not:

  • reveal personal details, such as National Insurance numbers, private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
  • use these channels to discuss or comment on individual benefit enquiries
  • break the law (this includes libel) condone illegal activity or break copyright
  • swear, make malicious or offensive comments
  • incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or other personal characteristics
  • advertise commercial products and services, you can mention relevant products and services as long as they support your comment
  • impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
  • post messages that are unrelated to the topic of the original web post
  • make comments which are party political in nature

We reserve the right to remove comments at any time for any of the above.

For serious or persistent breaches of the moderation policy, we reserve the right to prevent users from posting further comments.

We can’t accept any messages on these channels as notification of any change in circumstances that may impact a benefit claim.

We can’t discuss party political issues.

If we share information from other websites and sources it doesn’t imply any kind of endorsement.

Official DWP Twitter accounts

We’ve published a list of official DWP Twitter accounts.

@DWPgovuk

The @DWPgovuk Twitter account is managed by the DWP Digital Communication Team.

If you follow @DWPgovuk, you can expect regular tweets covering:

  • news stories, press releases and useful facts and figures
  • consultations and other publications
  • speeches, visits, media interviews and statements by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and our ministers
  • campaign messages
  • retweets of notable announcements by UK government departments, other organisations of relevance to the DWP and interesting stories, comments or opinion which we think will be of interest to our followers

If you follow @DWPgovuk we will not automatically follow you back.

If we follow a Twitter account or refer to existing hashtags it doesn’t imply any kind of endorsement.

We review @messages during office hours, Monday to Friday (not including public holidays) but don’t generally reply to them. We may occasionally tweet during out of office hours. We will try to make sure the feedback we’re getting from you gets to the appropriate people within the DWP.

If you are a member of the media and have an enquiry, please contact the DWP Press Office on 0115 965 8781. Please don’t use Twitter to contact us.

Jobcentre accounts

The range of Jobcentre accounts (@JCPin) are managed by Jobcentre plus colleagues in regions. The username @JCPin is followed by the location name the account covers.

We manage these accounts, between 9 and 5 Monday to Friday (not including public holidays).

If you follow the @JCPin, you can expect regular tweets covering:

  • job vacancies
  • information on apprenticeships, training and other job related opportunities
  • feature content of interest to our audience

If we follow a Twitter account it doesn’t imply any kind of endorsement.

Facebook moderation policy

The DWP Facebook page is reactively moderated. We can’t accept responsibility of the content of any comments. We will manage this account during office hours, Monday to Friday (not including public holidays).

YouTube moderation policy

We pre-moderate comments submitted to the DWP YouTube channel. This means that comments won’t be published instantly – DWP moderators will check them first. Moderators will monitor the site during office hours, Monday to Friday, and aim to process comments within 2 working days.

Moderation is intended to prevent people publishing private, personal information that could open them to fraud.

Moderators will remove any comment they consider to be inappropriate, that breaks these rules or is not in line with the YouTube Community Guidelines.

Instagram moderation policy

We manage the Instagram account during office hours, Monday to Friday (not including public holidays). The page is reactively moderated and we can’t accept responsibility for the content of any comments.

Freedom of Information requests

We welcome requests made under the Freedom Of Information (FOI). Please read How to make a freedom of information (FOI) request.

The best way to submit your request is to email it to freedom-of-information-request@dwp.gsi.gov.uk

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