Social media use
Guidance and moderation information for the Prime Minister’s Office social media channels.
In engaging through social media channels we use personal data in accordance with our privacy notice.
Livestreams and People’s PMQs
When we are conducting a livestream question and answer session (Q&A) event across any of our social media platforms we may ask for informal and voluntary information such as name, occupation and location. This information is solely to help give a voice to people around the country by sourcing a broad range of questions and to provide some additional context for the Prime Minister about who he is directing his response to. This information is not retained following the end of the livestream but is visible within the comments or replies section of whichever social media platform it is posted on.
Depending on the social media channel the livestream Q&A event is hosted on the below channel moderation policies will apply.
The 10 Downing Street Facebook page is managed by the Prime Minister’s Office digital communications team.
It’s used to highlight speeches and announcements from the Prime Minister.
Comments posted on and messages received on the Facebook page are views of individuals and don’t represent the views of the government.
Social media moderation policy
The 10 Downing Street Facebook page is reactively moderated. We can’t accept responsibility for the content of any comment.
We reserve the right to remove comments received on Facebook 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 or 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 and/or persistent breaches of the moderation policy, we reserve the right to prevent users from posting further comments.
Twitter - @10DowningStreet
The @10DowningStreet Twitter account is managed by the Prime Minister’s Office digital communications team.
If you follow @10DowningStreet, you can expect regular tweets covering:
- news and press releases
- speeches and statements by the Prime Minister
- new photos
- retweets of notable announcements by UK government departments and organisations
- occasional live event coverage
If we follow a Twitter account it doesn’t imply any kind of endorsement.
@ messages and direct messages
We review all @ messages daily, but don’t generally reply to them.
We also won’t normally reply to direct messages. The limitations of Twitter’s format mean that we wouldn’t be able to give you a full and useful reply.
We can’t engage on issues of party politics.
Twitter and FOI
For Freedom of Information (FOI) requests we will usually ask for an email address to reply to. If we can reply in a single tweet we may do so.
YouTube
The 10 Downing Street YouTube page is managed by the Prime Minister’s Office digital communications team.
It’s used to publish videos of speeches and announcements from the Prime Minister.
The 10 Downing Street YouTube page is not moderated.
Comments posted on YouTube are the views of individuals and don’t represent the views of the government.
We can’t accept responsibility for the content of any comment, but we reserve the right to disable the comments section of a video if it contains abusive, obscene, indecent, offensive or threatening language.
Flickr
The Prime Minister’s Flickr photostream features images from a wide range of events, from social engagements at 10 Downing Street to state visits. It’s intended as an informal record of the PM’s activities.
We tag images so you can see where they were taken, and create sets of pictures for each major visit.
We don’t allow comments on images.
Photos are subject to copyright and not normally available for re-use without permission.
The 10 Downing Street Instagram account is managed by the Prime Minister’s Office digital communications team.
If you follow @10DowningStreet, you can expect images and videos covering:
- announcements and speeches made by the Prime Minister
- domestic and foreign visits he makes
- events and receptions the Prime Minister attends
We review @ mentions, but don’t generally reply to them. We also won’t normally reply to direct messages and we can’t engage on issues of party politics.
Contacting the Prime Minister
You won’t be able to contact the Prime Minister directly through our social media channels.
You can write to the Prime Minister:
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
You can also email the Prime Minister’s Office but responses to emails can’t, unfortunately, be guaranteed due to the volume received:
Emails can be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office using the link above. If you are emailing about an issue relating to the responsibilities of another Government Department or public authority then you should contact them directly.
Due to the exceptionally high volumes of emails being received at this time, the Prime Minister’s Office is only able to deal with those that relate directly to the Prime Minister. At this time we are not able to respond to emails that do not fall into this category or are of a general nature.
Please consider carefully whether your email is necessary and note that emails are not monitored throughout the day or at weekends.