CITY councillors will be asked what social media training they want to undertake next week.

The authority will adopt a ‘social media protocol for councillors’ following controversy involving Ben Lloyd-Shogbesan, current Labour councillor for Lye Valley.

The council said it is ‘evident’ it needed to ‘take a more proactive role in promoting best practice for social media use amongst councillors’.

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Last year, Mr Lloyd-Shogbesan was found to have shared Facebook posts branded ‘abhorrent’ by fellow councillors, including one that compared Nazi Germany to Israel; another appeared to criticise gay marriage.

A city council investigation found he was not acting as a councillor at the time and could not be disciplined – but he was suspended from the Labour group. He has since been readmitted to it.

The authority said it is now looking at implementing a ‘social media protocol for councillors’, but the ‘exact status, format and content’ of it is still ‘under consideration’.

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It could be delivered online in a short session or could be longer and delivered by social media experts paid for by the council.

The council’s standards committee will be told members will need to be ‘reminded…of the potential risks associated with [social media’s] use regardless of whether they are 'posting or blogging' in their official capacity as a councillor or as a private individual’.

Several councillors use social media, including the authority’s leader, Susan Brown.