Auckland Council uses bullying tactics to silence Twitter critic
A member of the public criticised the council on Twitter, so it complained to her employer about it.
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Infrastructure
Auckland Council has used bullying tactics to try to silence a member of the public who criticised it on Twitter.
When Tara Sutherland – an infrastructure designer at Telecom – wrote a scathing tweet yesterday about Auckland's parking prices, the council's transport arm, Auckland Transport, complained to her employer.
Ms Sutherland's offending tweet read: "Screw you Auckland City ... your public transport is rubbish and in the space of three hours you triple parking prices!"
The tweet was accompanied by a photo of two parking tickets reflecting Ms Sutherland's gripe.
Two hours later, she tweeted that Auckland Council had made a complaint to her employer about the tweet.
In a tweet soon after an unidentified person from Auckland Transport replied, saying: "Sincere apologies. As moderator I'm mortified and we're dealing with it internally as it is in breach of our policy."
The wayward bureaucrat at Auckland Transport would have had to do some digging to find who Ms Sutherland's employer is, as it is not listed on her Twitter profile.
Mayor Len Brown would not front to explain why one of his citizens was bullied by a council bureaucrat, instead referring NBR ONLINE's inquiries to the council's bloated PR team.
Council communications manager Sharon Hunter says an internal investigation has been launched to work out how it occurred.
"Auckland Transport has an open approach to comments on social media and welcomes all feedback regarding our services and activities." Unmitigated bunkum.
The so-called "open approach" and feedback welcome failed in this case.
Which raises the question of how much more of this sort of nasty bullying is going on in Brown's Town?
Tell us your council bullying story.
Caleb Allison
Tue, 11 Dec 2012
Tue, 11 Dec 2012
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Auckland Council uses bullying tactics to silence Twitter critic
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