Social Media Policy
The State of Vermont, Office of the Governor engages with the public through the social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. Social media use by the Office of the Governor creates an opportunity for Vermonters of all ages to engage with the Office of the Governor and extend traditional channels for constituent service. The site also offers constituents with diverse views an opportunity to engage with each other as they might in a local Town Meeting or other governmental public meeting. Content and comments in this site will be moderated accordingly as set forth below.
The Governor welcomes engagement by the public on social media at any time. However, given the need to manage state resources and content moderation, responses should only be expected during regular State of Vermont business hours.
When engaging with the Office of the Governor through social media you agree to the terms of the Office of the Governor Social Media Policy (Policy). The Office of the Governor may revise this Policy at any time, however we will provide notice of all Policy changes and identify the changes.
Further, when engaging with the Office of the Governor on our Facebook and Twitter sites you are subject to the Terms of Service (TOS) of the host site (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php; Twitter: https://twitter.com/en/tos). Content (photos, videos, etc.) you share with or post to Office of the Governor pages are subject to the TOS of the host site. The Office of the Governor is not responsible for limits Facebook or Twitter may place on speech as a result of violations of the TOS. Content shared may be used by the owners of the host site for their own purposes according to the site-specific TOS. The Office of the Governor encourages the public to review host site TOS prior to engaging with our Facebook and Twitter sites so they fully understand their rights.
User Generated Content
Constituents are encouraged to share comments and content on our Facebook and Twitter sites. In order to ensure these forums remain venues Vermonters of all ages feel welcome to express diverse viewpoints and participate in democratic processes, content and comments shared should adhere to the standards outlined in this Policy and host site TOS, and should follow all copyright and trademark laws. The Office of the Governor reserves the right to “hide” or remove content or comments that contain:
- Profane or obscene language or content.
- Defamatory language.
- Content intended to sexually harass others.
- Threats of violence or to public safety.
- Information that may compromise the safety or security of the public, including public systems, and infrastructure.
- Information that may compromise the safety or security of the State, including State employees.
- Personal attacks on individuals with offensive content or language which targets race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability status.
- Content that includes information which is confidential or personally identifying by law, rule or regulation. For your protection, never post sensitive personally identifying information on social media.
- Solicitations of commerce or advertisements for products, services, entities or individuals.
- Spam or links to malicious or harmful software.
- Content intended to impersonate another person or legitimate organization.
Customer Use Policy
Comments and content posted in our Facebook and Twitter sites are reviewed by the Office of the Governor.
Content and comments on Twitter will not be edited or removed.
With respect to Facebook, the Office of the Governor does not discriminate based on viewpoint. Content and comments will not be edited, but we reserve the right to 1) block certain words from appearing on the site through the Facebook profanity filter which will “hide” user generated content or comments or 2) manually “hide” or remove user generated content or comments if they violate the criteria above. “Hidden” content or comments are available to the commenter and “friends” only. Removal of content and comments will be reserved for the most egregious violations of this Policy. Comments removed from our Facebook account will be documented and saved by the Office of the Governor and will be subject to the State of Vermont’s Public Records Act (PRA). No record is created when content or comments are automatically hidden by Facebook automated tools (such as the profanity filter), thus the Office of the Governor will be unable to provide records responsive to requests for this information. The list of words which are blocked from appearing on the site are available upon request made to the Office of the Governor at http://governor.vermont.gov/contact-us/message. Express or implied threats of violence or to public safety may be referred to the Vermont State Police for investigation.
Individual accounts will not be blocked or banned. Accounts established as “bots” (automated accounts) or fake accounts (not associated with a verifiable specific individual or organization, such as parody accounts) will be blocked or banned.
Disclaimer
- Liking and following an account, user or page by our Facebook and Twitter accounts on third party sites does not equal an endorsement.
- Liking, commenting, or sharing specific content by our Facebook and Twitter accounts does not equal an endorsement of the global third-party content.
- The Office of the Governor is not responsible for, nor can it control content on third-party sites.
- The Office of the Governor does not control nor guarantee the accuracy or completeness of information contained in external content or hypertext links linking to or from third-party websites.
- Third party content and links are not intended to reflect the opinion of the Office of the Governor.