Life as a Govanhill Community group admin
Running a local Facebook group in Govanhill means more than sharing events – it’s about challenging stigma. In this article, we speak to Marian McSeveney and Fatima Uygun, the people behind Govanhill Go! and I Love Govanhill, to find out what it’s really like to manage these online communities.
By Samar Jamal | Illustrations by Alexander Hoyles
For the admins behind these groups, moderation isn’t just about rules – it’s about values, perception and surviving the strange visibility that comes with becoming ‘locally famous’ without ever meaning to.
"I've had quite a lot of bad experiences – people shouting at me in the street. I’ve been doxxed, reported to the police, sent threatening messages. Someone even photoshopped something to make it look like I was saying things I wasn’t.”
Marian McSeveney is the admin behind Govanhill Go! – an online account that spans Facebook, X, Instagram and BlueSky, with over 10,000 followers combined. She runs it throughout the day around her real full time job: "In the morning, when I come home at night, while I’m watching TV, before I go to bed.”
Another community admin is Fatima Uygun, a name you might be more familiar with. A quick Google surfaces interviews with the BBC dating back to the 2001 occupation of Govanhill Baths, an appearance on MasterChef and her current role as manager of the Baths Trust. But she also runs I Love Govanhill and I Love Pollokshields Facebook groups which have 13,000 followers combined.
Some of the content overlaps with Govanhill Go! but what doesn’t often reveals something more personal: “It’s almost like you’re a curator of the content,” Marian says. “It’s a kind of reflection of my personality a little bit.”
Govanhill Go! was first set up in 2014 by her neighbour – one of the first residents of the Govanhill Enhanced Enforcement Area (which allows the council to take action against rogue landlords and even compulsory purchase properties) – to help residents voice their grievances about the flats. Marian wanted to move away from it: “It felt like the narrative had tilted too far. All anyone ever talked about was the negative side of Govanhill.”
Content on the Govanhill Go! Facebook group is screened by Marian to check it follows her rules before she accepts a post. Much of what’s shared is related to local community-run events people might not know about, opportunities or updates from local groups, from Big Noise to Glasgow Zine Library.
Similarly, on I Love Govanhill, you’ll find an ample number of positive posts. While on I Love Pollokshields, it’s similar but with more bartering, mutual aid and activism.
Marian puts this down to Fatima’s involvement in activism – her personality shining through. Fatima explains it’s also due to the difference in the areas: “I think because Govanhill is so congested, you can literally get what you want there in shops and people see each other so often in the streets. Whereas in Pollokshields, it took me like six months to work out who was in my street.”
While the groups are there for sharing information, they aren’t “interested in being a neighbourhood watch,” or “a place to whine,” Fatima says. She runs a tight ship to ensure that: “No pictures of dog poo. No pictures captioned ‘look what my neighbours have done’...Anything to do with crime, we tell people to go to the police.”
Marian emphasises that residents of Govanhill are already acutely aware of the area’s issues – things like bins and crime don’t need to be highlighted because “they live it.”
What’s more, online discussions about these problems rarely remain constructive for long and she notes they require a nuanced discussion that can be tricky on social media: “Take the bins issue,” she says. “Some people will have racist views about it. Others think it’s political – about funding and Thatcherism. Some people blame the council’s communication. Some think people genuinely don’t know the rules. There are so many layers to that conversation.”
This doesn’t mean either of them are ignoring the problems in their neighbourhood but they direct this towards council meetings and their elected representatives. Marian notes that in the past, housing associations held community conversations which felt impactful.
Marian is clear about the boundaries of her role: “If you don’t like the content, you don’t have to join the group,” she says. “It’s just me, sitting in my bedroom, on my phone, managing this thing.”
Still, people often treat the group like a public service: “That adds a strange layer of responsibility,” she says. “People expect fairness, balance, transparency – all the stuff you’d expect from an institution and I do try. But at the end of the day, I’m one person.” Not everything she shares fits the usual criteria she admits: “I’ve got a privilege because I spend my time doing this.”
Despite agreeing to the group’s rules beforehand, they still get a stream of people who submit content that’s not local or, worse, make racist or offensive remarks. The remedy? Block them. Fatima and Marian have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to this; they’ve blocked hundreds of people. That’s because they’ve witnessed the other side of it – lack of admin moderation and groups becoming filled with derogatory comments or misinformation.
Sometimes, people will try to apologise for their behaviour. “I do get messages from people saying, ‘Sorry, Fatima, I was just feeling shit that day and I’m really angry or whatever,’” she says. “It’s just like – I’m not your mother, what are you telling me for? Just behave.”
Marian’s experience echoes a similar weariness with how people perceive her authority. “I do feel like a lot of people think I’m just this sort of dictator figure,” she says. Messages will flood in, mostly from men, asking, “why did you block me?” Her response is blunt: “I made it clear why I did. But also, it doesn’t really matter. It’s my group. You don’t have a right to reply. If I don’t like it, you’re off.”
While Facebook is the most active account, she does use X but it’s different, as it’s “more public-facing”, a bit more like the “wild west.” She’s considered stepping away from X in light of increased alt-right sentiments but since most of the people with “bad opinions of Govanhill are there, it would be like preaching to the converted” on BlueSky. Whereas she can challenge opinions on X.
She admits you have to be more vigilant on X because of its reach, as well as public figures like Nicola Sturgeon following the account: “If Nicola Sturgeon retweets one of your posts, you’ll be up all night checking your mentions, hoping nothing’s being said about you that you don’t want out there.”
Marian notes that the biggest benefit of Govanhill Go! might actually be to people outside of Govanhill, without intending it: “I want people to think about Govanhill in the same way they might think about the West End. You could come here for dinner, walk through the park, have a wander up Victoria Road, get some ice cream. It’s a lovely place. There’s a lot of nice stuff happening.”
For all the power of online groups, Fatima is clear they’re not a substitute for the real thing: “I don’t think it will – or should – replace people meeting and working together in person,” she says. While it “plays a role, it’s limited. During Covid and Black Lives Matter, it was great for organising – you could say there’s a vigil and people would show up. But it’s not the same as being together.”