I AM writing to voice my opinion, and the opinion of others, regarding a ‘public group’ page on Facebook.

The page is called ‘Spotted in Andover’.

There are many like it but it is the main page to which I am referring.

The purpose of this page is for people to voice their opinions regarding local issues, areas of concern, news or changes within the town.

This I do not have a problem with.

The issue I am raising is that the page also allows people to incriminate and name local businesses or individuals.

This is cyber crime.

For a page that has almost 14,000 followers, this is a big part of our community.

When people decide to have a ‘rant’ about something they have seen in our town, I do not believe a public Facebook page is the right place to do it.

If they wish to make a complaint about a business or individual, why hide behind a computer screen instead of addressing the issue directly?

It is the same principle as cyber bullying.

There are numerous campaigns and awareness trying to tackle this horrendous crime, so why is nothing being done about a Facebook page that allows people to bad-mouth these individuals?

We are all aware of the issue around self-employed and local businesses that struggle to keep afloat due to corporate businesses taking over.

People ‘naming and shaming’ these businesses only make it harder for them to survive.

Please publish this to make these people who are so quick to turn to Facebook to voice their opinions know of the damage they are doing to their victims.

I hope they read this and feel shamed themselves and next time go directly to the business or individual.

Tim Ashwell, Turnpike Crescent, Picket Twenty

Editor’s note: We put the above criticism to Spotted in Andover, who replied:

1. SIA has almost 20k community members. Not 14k.

2. Those community members, each and every one of them, have a right to use the platform we provide.

3. What the author of the letter ‘believes’ is their own opinion and not a factual statement.

4. Facebook has clear community page guidelines, designed to help pages avoid legal issues. We have followed those community guidelines (as well as introduced our own house rules) from day one and will continue to do so.

5. This is not cyber crime. If it was, the police would have more to say than the letter’s author.

6. We will never, EVER, restrict the content on SIA to reflect a false reality, despite how much some people may want it. SIA reflects a raw truth and always will.

7. I, nor my admin team, feel any shame about SIA. We are regular people, with lives and jobs who genuinely love and promote the positive side of the page.

8. The suspicion and resistance towards SIA that the author shows has been around since the start. We are used to it.

9. SIA is all about local businesses.

We promote them EVERY single day. We work with some of them to add content that will increase their posts’ potential reach, we have archived posts which anyone can access that show an overwhelming positivity towards people and businesses.

You can see almost endless lists of these posts by searching #SIAthankyou (celebrating awesome people and businesses) and #SIArecommendations (where countless small businesses have receive massive promotion at no cost and as a result, new customers).

10. The only thing that will change or stop SIA are the people who use it. I’ve said that over and over again.

This page is not me, or my team. It is everyone who uses it, it’s Andover.