Social media use

What we share and how we moderate comments on the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Our Twitter and Facebook accounts are managed by APHA Corporate Communications. We post news about our work, our events and issues relating to animal health and welfare.

We may also retweet notable announcements by other government departments and agencies, or other organisations which are relevant to the work of APHA.

Availability

We update and monitor our accounts from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday (not including public holidays). However, in the event of an emergency such as a disease outbreak, we will tweet or post updates in our out-of-office hours.

Twitter may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to downtime or problems with the internet. We reserve the right to delete our accounts at any time.

Following our accounts

If you choose to follow our accounts, we will not automatically follow you. We may follow organisations and individuals which we regard relevant to APHA, but this isn’t an endorsement of any kind. We reserve the right to unfollow or remove accounts we believe are malicious or spam.

Monitoring our social media

While we welcome comments and tweets, we reserve the right to delete posts that contain:

  • an attempt to impersonate another person or falsify your identity
  • content which could incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality
  • commercial endorsement or promotion of products or services
  • abusive, obscene or offensive language
  • personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
  • content which may be breaking the law
  • party political material
  • content which could cause a security or privacy risk

We will report any posts or tweets considered slanderous or threatening towards named staff to the police, and Facebook and Twitter as appropriate.

Responding to our social media

We welcome your feedback, but we can’t reply to all postings.

Our social media channels are not for complaints, detailed queries or freedom of information requests. See our complaints page or personal information charter for more details.

Press enquiries

Newsdesk

For media queries between 09:00am and 18:00pm on weekdays:

  • telephone 0330 041 6560

Out of hours

For media queries before 09:00am and after 18:00pm on weekdays, and on weekends and public holidays:

  • telephone 0345 051 8486
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