Maitland Council’s social media policy: Push for changes to ensure councillors made accountable
Maitland Liberal councillor Ben Mitchell is calling for all councillors to “disclose” interest in social media pages and online websites, saying all councillors need to be held “accountable” for what they post online.
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A Maitland councillor says he’s “fed up” and wants to ensure all councillors are held accountable for content that is posted online and to social media.
Cr Ben Mitchell said following the collapse of a number of community newspapers as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic a number of new “news’ websites have been “popping up”.
He said some “articles” on these sites have almost word-for-word recounted councillor views, without being clear who the administrator is.
And the sites have been used to whip up hatred and slurs directed to other Maitland councillors, with comments often left to snowball while critical views to the administrator are deleted.
“There’s no journalist claiming the article, there’s no editor, there’s no contact for the office or even an email,” Cr Mitchell said.
“It just seems a little bit suspect that they seem to focus on one or two councillors repeatedly.
“Prime example referring to the female mayor as an “out of touch b**ch”, that’s left there to sit and fester.”
“That’s not on.”
Cr Mitchell said the upsurge in the use of social media and other websites has been used by some Maitland councillors to leverage large social media followings to further political interests, through various community forums.
At Maitland Council’s Tuesday meeting his notice of motion was voted in favour, which adds to the state code councils are already bound to regarding social media policy, to insert extra clauses.
This would require that all administrative interests of councillors, in relation to social media pages and websites, be disclosed.
“It’s not attempting to limit what every councillor can say, I don’t care if they want to say the earth is flat, just put their name to it and be accountable,” Cr. Mitchell added.
“I don’t begrudge them seeking an audience, but I begrudge them doing it anonymously.
“They’re publicly elected councillors, and they should be accountable for what they say and the public have a right to know who is behind these pages.
“If it’s not a councillor, they’re not accountable to the public in the same way.
“The council has known it has gone on for a while but a lot of them have been scared to do anything about it because they don’t want to become the target of these pages.”
Maitland Mayor Loretta Baker, who supported the motion, said it was “pretty sad” councillors couldn’t monitor their own behaviour on social media.
“We need to behave in a respectful way with integrity, it’s sad we’ve had to do this,” she said.
“We owe it to the Maitland community, when there’s a whole lot of community pages out there that people aren’t aware of, being administered by councillors and people block from them, people living in the suburb can’t get in them.
“I would never have a page without my name on it if I was an administrator and I’m astounded people think that is ok.”
The Newcastle News contacted several other Maitland councillors.
Deputy Mayor Philip Penfold declined to comment, while councillors Sally Halliday, Mitchell Griffin and Kanchan Ranadive did not respond.