House rules for social media
Date published: 24 October 2023 09:39South Yorkshire Police support staff are on hand to help on social media. We bring you news from across the force including breaking news alerts, traffic updates, appeals for information, campaigns, crime prevention advice and good news stories.
While the ‘South Yorkshire Police’ accounts are managed by support staff, the information comes from police officers and police staff working across the force. Sometimes, we will share news and appeals on behalf of other UK police forces.
If you need to report a crime, please call 101 or visit our website to talk to us on live chat or submit information through our online portal. If it’s an emergency, always call 999.
The force pages are monitored between 8am and 5pm, Monday – Friday.
House rules
This page sets out our house rules across all our social media accounts – Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and Threads.
We welcome comments and engagement on our posts. Our platforms are a place where healthy discussion is encouraged, and we aim to answer your questions in the comments section. We will not tolerate or respond to abusive messages.
We will remove any content which is:
- Abusive or discriminatory against any individual or group
- Threatening, including intimidating towards our officers and staff
- Deceptive or misleading, including misinformation and disinformation
- Obscene, profane or sexually explicit
- Defamatory or slanderous
- In violation of copyright
- In violation of any law or regulation or promoting illegal activity
- Considered to be spamming or spam
- Controversial, irrelevant, off-topic or baiting – otherwise known as trolling
- Promotional material, including links to external websites
If your comment falls into the list above, it may be hidden or deleted without warning. We may publicly respond to your comment or send a direct message to warn that if you continue to post comments of a similar nature, you may be temporarily, or permanently blocked from our social media accounts.
Fake or ‘bot’ accounts will be blocked permanently as soon as we become aware of them.
We also reserve the right to screenshot comments and criminally investigate them, should they break any law.
If you see a comment or post on our page which you think breaches our house rules, the terms and conditions of the platform, or which makes you feel unsafe, please tag us or report this through our website or 101.