Sam Bennett is limiting his time on his NPDC Facebook Page before the election. He is concerned about misinformation and disinformation and needs to keep himself safe.

We’ve attached a post by Sam Bennett to advise us – the Voters – he will be intentionally limiting his use of his NPDC Facebook Page between now and the last voting date of 11^th October.

Sam goes on a bit about misinformation and disinformation and having to keep himself safe.

He also makes a little bit of a plug for the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.

To be fair there can be some very nasty comments made on Facebook, but there are also a few sites that have tens of thousands of followers – a big chunk of the city follows the page – and these do not have nasty comments.

If you are running for a seat around the Council table to represent your community, surely you need to listen to what your community has to say. Otherwise how will you represent their needs ?

The community is the 80,000 plus people who live here. That’s a lot of opinions to be considered.

Sam tells us he “does not read, engage with or comment on the various local council/election focused pages” – “doing the rounds”.

He will “however make himself available at formal organised events” – “in a safe environment”.

It does take a pretty tough skin and backbone to put your name in the hat to run for Council, but the point of being there is making sure you fairly represent all of your community.

If you get to the point you think the voters are all spreading misinformation and disinformation, and you are upset by what people have to say, it would seem it’s either time to listen harder to what the people are saying they need, or don’t need, or maybe don’t put your hat in the ring this year if it is so upsetting and unsafe.