North Tawton Town Council agreed this week to continue livestreaming meetings despite concerns that footage could be used to misrepresent the council.

It comes after some of the video footage from previous meetings was used in a critical YouTube vlog about council decisions.

However, a discussion at the council meeting on Tuesday saw councillors warned that cutting off the livestream would stop the residents in general from finding out about council business straight from the horse’s mouth.

Cllr Steve Whiteley said: “I think you have got to give the general public credit because they can see the livestreaming and if they then also see the edited version they can see [the difference]. Even if we stop, members of the public still have the right to film.”

Cllr Sarah McKnight added: “I just think we keep tabs on it. It’s a brilliant tool to reach people in the community who are genuinely interested in council business. It’s a shame that the minority may spoil it for the majority. We do have a responsibility over people’s welfare as well. We need to be astute to listening to complaints coming in from members of the public around how the filming is being edited and the upset that that’s caused in the community. If we continue, we are taking on that responsibility.”

One suggestion from Cllr Noah Smith was that videos posted on Facebook could feature a copyright credit for the council, to give comeback if someone takes the content and uses it elsewhere.

He said: “Facebook and YouTube have quite good content creator protection and there are channels where you can request a video is taken down if someone takes your video and you don’t want them to. However, it is a wonderfully grey area.”

No formal decision on the possibility of copyrighting future videos was taken.