Comments on: Wandsworth Council victim of identity fraud on Twitter?

By: Liz Azyan

Liz Azyan — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:01:44 +0000

Hi Tim,
Thanks for bringing this issue to light. I was not aware of the extent of these problems until you highlighted it in your comment. This is definitely a problem that what we have seen in the past called "Domain squatting" or "cyber squatting". Usually this happens to companies or even celebrities and some of these cases even end up in court. I will definitely write a post about this in the near future and hopefully discover some solutions. I think your approach to register all possible domain names is a great way to overcome it, but I would suggest publicizing your social media accounts on your the front page of local council website (like Barnet council and St. Helens Council is doing) and advise people that these are the only official council accounts and any other accounts are simply not associated with your council.

I've found that by clearly marketing your councils social media brand along with its goal using names like for example 'camdentalking' or 'derbylistening' creates stronger participation and function for each social media outlet you wish to use. And its also becomes a great civic engagement tool if people understand the use or function of each outlet clearly. When developing social media channels, its important to look at each channel serving a specific tool for engagement and not a duplication of the brand you already have like your main local council website.

Hope this helps!
Look forward to find out about the progress of your councils redevelopment site.

By: admin

admin — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:01:52 +0000

I’ve found that by clearly marketing your councils social media brand along with its goal using names like for example ‘camdentalking’ or ‘derbylistening’ creates stronger participation and function for each social media outlet you wish to use. And its also becomes a great civic engagement tool if people understand the use or function of each outlet clearly. When developing social media channels, its important to look at each channel serving a specific tool for engagement and not a duplication of the brand you already have like your main local council website.

Hope this helps!
Look forward to find out about the progress of your councils redevelopment site.

By: Tim Cooper

Tim Cooper — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:25:29 +0000

This is a growing problem for local authorities with the growth in the use of social media. We in Derby have found that our name (and other authorities in the area) has been registered on Blogger and domains registered in our name by a company in Israel. We disputed the registration with Nominet, but they rejected the case. Our approach has been to register all of our names on as many of the social media sites as possible. As you say, there is little (currently) that can be done.

Our own twitter account is a test account and is not ‘live’ as such (although it is listed in various places by people who have come across it). We will be redeveloping our main site in 2009, which will include social media.