The virtual Labour movers and shakers in Plymouth City Council are Tweeting mad about the ban on them using Twitter.
The decision came from Barry Keel, the chief executive of Plymouth City Council. He sent an email condemning the inappropriate use of the social network, which said he had received complaints from the council staff and members of the public about use of language and inappropriate comments in emails on social networking sites.
It aint all bad tho’ – the Corporate Communications Team can still Tweet off – just the rest of those with anything to do with the council have been curbed.
Councillor Tudor Evans, who may have started this with his comments about a BNP person, said: “Banning Twitter is another knee-jerk reaction from a council that is barely able to cope with email let alone YouTube and Facebook. It is worrying that a council has banned democratically elected councillors from communicating the political process in Plymouth. Let’s be clear this isn’t about Twitter, this is about the Council stopping councillors talking about what happens inside and outside the council’s Ivory Towers.”
And Luke Pollard, Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for South West Devon who was recently named as the tenth most influential Labour person on Twitter, said: “It is disappointing that the city council hasn’t recognised the value of using Twitter like so many other councils have.
“Twitter has the potential to open up politics providing real-time transparency of the political process. By banning Twitter, the council has done more to promote its use in Plymouth City Council than anything those on Twitter could have done to promote it. In the process they have exposed themselves as a backward-looking authority blundering about in the internet age.”
Read the rest of the press release.
posted by Cptn
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Read our Plymouth City Council Twitter-Gate stories:
• Tweeted news of Plymouth City Council’s ban on Twitter
• Tudor Evan’s Twitter-gate BNP insult lingers on
• Tory Plymouth Councillor complains of Nazi jibe to the fascist BNP
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