TfL Ref 0096-2021/22 Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 15 April 2021 asking for information about our Twitter account management and the following Tweet: "Your messages are in breach of our house rules. Please make yourself aware of these to avoid being blocked. https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/terms-and-conditions/social-media. Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require. Your questions and our replies are as follows: Q1) Who sanctioned this message and what is the purpose? Transport for London’s Digital Communications team. The purpose of the message is to advise customers who have breached our rules on social media behaviour or content, that we expect them to abide by such rules when contacting us. Q2) Given muting an account avoids TfL seeing the content, while blocking an account denies the user access to information, there can be no justification to block rather than mute. Therefore, why does TfL block accounts - thus denying those users access to information - rather than merely mute accounts? Accounts are blocked to stop abusive messages and responses to published updates. For example: to stop a user from posting vulgar pictures in response to published updates. Anyone can see updates without logging into Twitter. Also, updates posted on Twitter are duplicates of information available on other channels such as the TfL website. Blocking a user from our social media channels does not remove their access to, or ability to find, relevant information and updates on our services. Q3) How many accounts have been blocked up to & including the date you respond to this message, for a "breach of house rules"? 91 accounts have been blocked since 15 June 2009. The majority of those accounts are not thought to be people but things like bots or automated accounts. All accounts would have been blocked for breach of house rules. Our process does not limit the user’s ability to see TfL’s social media posts. We understand if customers are unhappy about a particular issue and would not block/mute their account unless they are abusive. Blocking/muting of an account ensures that we will no longer have to view the offensive or spam content that a particular account is sending to us. This means that the team in the Contact Centre are not subjected to this content and it also makes our processes more efficient, as it removes the multiple spam tweets that bots or trolls might send us from the inbox of tweets we monitor. Q4 ) Please provide a full list of blocked accounts by TfL, and the reason why they were blocked. In accordance with TfL’s obligations under Data Protection legislation we are withholding this personal data as required by section 40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the legislation, specifically the first principle which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions which would make the processing ‘fair’. All accounts would have been blocked for breach of house rules. If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation. If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed. Yours sincerely Sara Thomas FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London