Social media use

Guidance and moderation information for the Department for Transport’s social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.


DfT Twitter policy

The department’s Twitter channel is managed by the content and social media team, on behalf of colleagues across the department.

If you follow us on Twitter, you can expect regular Tweets covering:

  • news and announcements
  • press releases
  • graphics, photos and videos
  • marketing campaign messages
  • information from our ministerial team about what they’re doing
  • retweets of notable announcements by other departments, agencies and organisations
  • occasional live coverage of events

We review comments, but don’t generally reply unless it is a genuine question to the department. Any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the department.

DfT Facebook policy

The department’s Facebook page is managed by the content and social media team, on behalf of colleagues across the department.

If you follow us on Facebook, you can expect regular posts covering:

  • news and announcements
  • press releases
  • graphics, photos and videos
  • marketing campaign messages

  • information around transport and people working across the network
  • reposts of notable announcements by other departments, agencies and organisations
  • occasional live coverage of events

We review comments, but don’t generally reply unless it is a genuine question to the department. Any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the department

DfT Instagram policy

The department’s Instagram page is managed by the content and social media team, on behalf of colleagues across the department.

If you follow us on Instagram, you can expect posts covering:

  • news and announcements
  • graphics, photos and videos
  • information around transport and people working across the network
  • interactive questions and quizzes

We review @ mentions and direct messages, but don’t generally reply unless it is a genuine question to the department. Any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the department

DfT LinkedIn policy

The department’s LinkedIn page is managed by the content and social media team, on behalf of colleagues across the department.

If you follow us on LinkedIn, you can expect posts covering:

  • news and announcements
  • graphics, photos and videos
  • press releases
  • job openings and career highlights from across the department/agencies
  • reposts of notable announcements by other departments, agencies and organisations

We review comments, but don’t generally reply unless it is a genuine question to the department. Any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the department

DfT YouTube policy

The department’s YouTube page is managed by the content and social media team, on behalf of colleagues across the department.

It’s used to publish videos of speeches, announcements and transport stories from the Department for Transport.

The Department for Transport YouTube page is not moderated.

Following DfT

If you follow us on social media, we may follow you back. Being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind.

DfT availability

We will update and monitor our social channels account during office hours, Monday to Friday. We may occasionally post on the weekend depending on the news agenda. Channels may occasionally be unavailable, and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to downtime.

DfT social media moderation policy

We welcome feedback, ideas and engagement from all our followers, and endeavour to join the conversation where possible. However, we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via our social channels.

The department’s social channels are reactively moderated. We can’t accept responsibility for the content of any comment.

We reserve the right to remove comments received on our social media channels that:

  • contain abusive, obscene, indecent or offensive language, or link to obscene or offensive material
  • contain swear words or other sorts of profanity
  • are completely removed from the topic of conversation or aren’t relevant to the item posted on the wall
  • contain abusive language towards an individual involved in the thread, other organisations of the page administrator
  • constitute spam or promote or advertise products, except where it’s for an event, publication or similar item that has direct relevance to the subject of discussion. Information about locating and sharing knowledge and expertise is welcomed, but within the specific discussion
  • are designed to cause nuisance to the page administrator or other users

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

We cannot engage on issues of party politics or answer questions which break the rules of our general comments policy.

Comments posted on the Department for Transport’s social channels are the views of individuals and don’t represent the views of the government.

The usual ways of contacting us for official correspondence are detailed in the contact us.

THINK! Road Safety social media policy

The THINK! Road Safety social media channels are managed by the THINK! campaigns team.

These include:

Posts will include alerts about:

  • THINK! campaigns
  • road safety information
  • THINK! press releases
  • new content published on THINK! channels
  • events relevant to road safety
  • selected road safety news from stakeholders

Following THINK!

If you follow us on our social media channels, we may follow you back. Being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind.

THINK! availability

We will update and monitor our social media accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday. Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to downtime of these channels.

Replies and direct messages from THINK!

We welcome feedback, ideas and engagement from all our followers, and endeavour to join the conversation where possible. However, we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via our social media channels.

The campaigns team monitor comments and direct messages and ensure that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the team.

We cannot engage on issues of party politics or answer questions which break the rules of our general comments policy.

Contact the THINK! campaigns team outside of our social media channels if necessary.

It’s everyone’s journey social media policy

The it’s everyone’s journey (IEJ) social media channels are managed by the inclusive transport campaign team at the Department for Transport.

These include:

Posts will include alerts about:

  • IEJ campaign activity
  • selected accessible and inclusive transport news from stakeholders
  • selected partner activity relevant to the IEJ objectives
  • IEJ press releases
  • new content published on IEJ channels
  • events relevant to the IEJ objective

Following IEJ

If you follow us on our social media channels, we may follow you back. Being followed by us does not imply endorsement of any kind.

IEJ availability

We will update and monitor our social media accounts during office hours, Monday to Friday. Twitter and Facebook may occasionally be unavailable, and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to downtime of these channels.

Replies and direct messages from IEJ

We welcome feedback, ideas and engagement from all our followers, and endeavour to join the conversation where possible. However, we are not able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via our social media channels.

The campaigns team monitors comments and direct messages and ensure that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are passed to the relevant colleagues in the team.

We cannot engage on issues of party politics or answer questions which break the rules of our general comments policy.

Contact the IEJ campaigns team outside of our social media channels if necessary.

Transport agencies’ social media use