Northern beaches social media crackdown: Councillors urged to tread carefully, avoid litigation risk
A plan is expected to go before Northern Beaches Council next week which looks at developing a social media policy for councillors in a bid to prevent “risk of litigation”.
Manly
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Councillors are being urged to adopt a social media policy over “increased risk of litigation to council” after an “enormous” surge in defamation cases in NSW.
The notice of motion by deputy mayor Candy Bingham is expected to go before Northern Beaches Council next Tuesday.
Cr Bingham said it comes after staff had already taken the step of adopting a social media policy in November.
She added, the timing was crucial as councillors step up their use of social media to communicate with residents amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a procedural matter and it brings us in line with what other councils are doing,” Cr Bingham said.
“When staff adopted a social media policy last year, I suggested that councillors develop a policy too so it’s been going on for some time now.”
Randwick, Inner West, Maitland and Snowy River councils have adopted social media policies.
An example from Randwick Council’s social media policy is that councillors must not “breach the privacy of other council officials; post content that is offensive, humiliating, misleading or deceptive, threatening or intimidating to other council officials.”
However, independent Cr Vincent De Luca slammed Cr Bingham’s idea, referring to it as “an effort to try and silence debate”.
Last month councillors debated the 2020/21 Operational Plan and Budget which looked at how the council would deal with economic blows from the coronavirus pandemic.
It proposes a $92m capital works program, community support programs and an increased rates cost to the tune of 2.6 per cent. However with a 50 per cent subsidy on increases in rates and domestic waste charges, the rate increase comes down to 1.3 per cent.
“Since Mayor Regan and Deputy Mayor Bingham led the charge to increase rates by 2.6 per cent and their salaries (last year), there has been a massive back lash against them by thousands on Facebook, and rightly so.
“Cr Bingham is the only councillor who has been successfully sued for defamation so I think she needs to concentrate on herself.”
In response Cr Bingham said the purpose of the motion was to purely protect council and councillors.
“The council can protect itself with policy, a lot of councils have policies, we’re not the first one to do it by any means,” she said.
“It’s not to do with gagging anybody. I absolutely support people having Facebook pages. It’s one way we can communicate with communities. I just think it’s important it’s a tool we have to be careful with and we have to monitor it carefully.
“The fact that I have been sued makes it more important that council understands that we’re leaving ourselves exposed for possible litigation. I actually got sued for comments from what other people put on my page and it cost be a lot of money.”
In June 2018 the Manly Daily published an article about the defamation case involving Cr Bingham and the former general manager of Manly Council Henry Wong, where Cr Bingham issued a public apology.