Social media guidelines

To keep things friendly, we have put together some simple guidelines that we ask our community to follow. These guidelines cover the social media channels we have a presence on.

Availability

Our social media pages are monitored Monday–Friday, so responses to comments and messages may not be immediate. Please also be aware that we have a small digital team and we cannot respond to all messages.

Social media channels

We use different social media channels for different purposes and regularly review which channels are best suited for which type of content. At present, here is what you can expect from our social channels:

• Instagram, LinkedIn and Bluesky: our broadest range of posts, from CPRE news, campaigns and advocacy to seasonal posts and fun.
• Facebook: a similar range of content but we may restrict certain topics due to risk of breaches in community guidelines.
• X and Threads: News reactions and hot off the press updates.
• TikTok and YouTube: short and longform video related to our work

Restricting comments

We encourage sensible discussion and debate on our social media posts, and accept that users may not always align with CPRE’s view. However, on occasion, some topics can elicit a hostile or inappropriate response. We reserve the right to restrict comments where there is a risk to the wellbeing of our digital team or risk of any breach of these guidelines.

Be respectful

We encourage open discussions, but please respect other users. Personal attacks, harassment, or hate speech will not be tolerated. Treat others how you’d like to be treated, and remember, our digital teams are human beings.

Stay truthful

Social media platforms are increasingly rife with misinformation and disinformation, and CPRE is considering how it can be more active in tackling harmful mis/disinformation. Please fact-check your contributions where appropriate, and avoid posting anything that could be considered fraudulent, suspicious, or misleading. Unintentional factual errors are fine, but we reserve the right to correct them, and may specifically highlight posts which are inaccurate. We may delete posts which contain harmful mis/disinformation.

AI and bots

An increasing amount of social media content is not human i.e. deepfake, AI-generated or bots. We will not engage with content or comments that are not ‘real’, except to point out factual errors. We ask all users to be vigilant and critical when reading content on social media, to prevent the circulation of mis/disinformation and the sowing of division’

Stay on topic

Please refrain from posting spam content such as self-promotion, link-baiting, clickbait, irrelevant links, advertising, or anything along these lines.

Moderation:

We’re committed to fostering positive conversations aligned with our mission. While we welcome constructive feedback and healthy discussions, social media moderation is becoming increasingly relaxed and we will do our part to create a healthy and safe space for discussion and information sharing. Therefore, we reserve the right to monitor and moderate our platforms. We will remove comments and may block users for sharing content that is:

• Abusive or threatening
• Bullying
• Offensive
• Hateful, discriminatory or inciting hate (e.g. racist, ableist, homophobic, Islamophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, xenophobic, sexist)
• Obscene, defamatory, or insulting
• Unlawful (e.g., defamatory, fraudulent, or infringing intellectual property)
• Intentionally misleading, or harmful mis/disinformation
• Spam or a repeated nuisance

We have a completely zero tolerance stance to bullying or discrimination of any kind whether it is directed at a member of the public, member of staff or volunteer, and will always remove, block, and aim to respond to offenders.

External links in comments

From time to time, users share external links in our social media comments. Only links posts by CPRE’s official account are endorsed by us. We ask users to be vigilant, as some external links can be fraudulent, spam, phishing, dis/misinformation or otherwise harmful content. We reserve the right to remove external links where they are not relevant to our campaigning aims or the topic being discussed.

Reporting inappropriate content

We strive to keep our pages welcoming, but if you see inappropriate content that we have missed, you can report it directly on Facebook using the “Flag” option or on Twitter via the “Report” feature.

Membership and donation requests

Unfortunately, we cannot monitor our social media account for personal data requests, permission changes or queries about memberships or donations. For these, please reach out to supportercare@cpre.org.uk. Click here for more information about your membership.

Protect your privacy

Please avoid sharing personal information like phone numbers, addresses, or email addresses on public posts. If you need to contact us regarding private matters, please send us a direct message.

Intellectual property

All content we post is the property of CPRE, the countryside charity. Any content you share on our social media platforms may be reshared by us or other users, in whole or in part.

Event sign-ups

By signing up for our events or giveaways via social media, you agree to receive further communications from CPRE about upcoming events, campaigns, and opportunities. You can opt out at any time.

Advertising

Depending on your privacy settings on platforms like Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), you may give us permission to access certain information from those accounts. For example, we may at times participate in Facebook’s “Custom Audience” program, allowing us to display ads to our supporters or potential supporters. To do this, we may provide Facebook with personal data such as your email, which is encrypted and deleted if not matched with a Facebook account. For more details, see Facebook’s Custom Audiences and Data Policy pages.

If you sign up with us through one of our adverts, you are giving us permission to contact your email address directly about relevant events, campaigns and actions. To unsubscribe from this, either contact us at supportercare@cpre.org.uk or click unsubscribe at the bottom of any email from us.

(Last updated: April 2025)