Social Media Community Standards - Ministry of Defence Police

We value your help and support, feedback and opinions on our social media channels and we want you to engage and talk to us in a safe environment. These standards are in place to help us achieve that.

We ask that anyone engaging with our social media channels (Facebook, Twitter(X), Instagram, LinkedIn) shows courtesy, kindness, and respect for all other members of our social media communities.

Comments should be relevant to the topic/post, and in the spirit of engagement. We welcome constructive feedback and people raising issues that are of concern to them.
By engaging with our social media channels, you agree to follow these standards.

Comments must not:

Threaten national security or public safety
Encourage disorder or criminal behaviour
Contain spam, be defamatory, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive or hateful towards any member of the public or our workforce, be inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence.
Promote discrimination based on protected characteristics including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
Breach any of the terms of any of the social media platforms
Contain any advertising or marketing for private businesses

Breach of standards

We reserve the right to determine, at our discretion, whether contributions to our social media channels breach our standards.
We reserve the right to hide or delete comments made on our channels, as well as to block users who do not follow these standards.
We also reserve the right to make a copy of any comments we deem appropriate for investigation as we feel necessary or is required for criminal justice purposes.

Blocking and appeals

On occasion we may take the decision to block members of the public.

Individuals who conduct the following will be blocked without notice:

Post messages which are discriminatory, or incite hatred towards a protected characteristic.
Threaten national security or public safety, encourage disorder or criminal activity.
Post offensive or abusive messages to any of our accounts or those of others engaging with our social media accounts.

Users who conduct the above will be immediately blocked for a period of 12 months, however we reserve the right to permanently block individuals. Any further breaches subsequent to their unblocking will be dealt with in accordance with this policy.

We will also consider blocking individuals who conduct the following behaviour, we may initially refer users to this guidance to give them an opportunity to change their behaviour.

Repetitively post the same message. (spamming).
Post nonsensical/inappropriate messages (e.g. poor taste jokes, meaningless messages).
Post defamatory comments/false allegations about individuals.
Post advertising/promotional material for private businesses.
Post statements which risk prejudicing a live investigation/being in contempt of court.
Post messages which could be considered to put an individual, or their property, in a vulnerable position. (e.g. giving out an address, or other details that may breach an individual’s right to privacy)
Continually going against our intended use for our force social media accounts.
Contravening these Community Standards and/or the rules of the various social media channels we use.

Please note the above is a non-exhaustive list which evidences behaviours which we consider unacceptable. There may be other behaviours not specified here which still fall below our expectations and may lead to a user being blocked.

In the rare instances that we feel it appropriate to block individuals from our social media accounts, it will not remove the ability for those blocked individuals to be able to contact us to report a crime, information or incident using the established formal contact methods.

If you have been blocked and you wish to appeal this decision, please email MDP-GeneralEnquiries-GMB@mod.gov.uk