Social Media Policy – Moderation of comments

This policy outlines our guidelines for moderating comments across all of St Nicholas Hospice Care’s social media channels.

We regularly monitor our social media channels and reserve the right to remove comments, posts and interactions which break our moderation guidelines. If tagged in content which breaks these guidelines, we will also remove ourselves.

We want our social media environments to be informative places where people can engage with our fundraising and services. People are welcome to offer feedback through our social media channels. Moderation will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned discussion, criticism or complaints.

You can read more about providing feedback or making a complaint here.

St Nicholas Hospice Care views that any comment or post that is made on a social media site is done so publicly and will consider them in that context.

Therefore, the Hospice may choose to moderate comments, posts and interactions on its social media pages. This will be done in cases where comments and interactions are not in line with the Hospice’s values or could be deemed offensive or harmful.

Moderation will include the hiding and removal of material as set out in the Hospice’s Social Media Policy.

Inappropriate comments or content may include: 

• comments which break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright;
• malicious or offensive messages that could constitute a personal attack on a person’s character, this includes staff, supporters, volunteers, patients, as well as representatives from organisations and groups we work with;
• if a staff member or volunteer reports instances where they feel they are subjected to abuse appropriate action will be taken in accordance with the Hospice’s Social Media Policy;
• swearing, hate-speech or obscenity;
• repetitive negative messages which aim to provoke a response or do not constructively add to the conversation;
• images that are inappropriate or links to inappropriate content are posted;
• offensive or derogatory comments relating to sex, gender reassignment, race (including nationality), disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity or age is included;
• posts and comments are made or shared in such a way as to bully or harass another individual;
• sharing personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details;
• high volumes of overly long messages which could constitute as spamming.;
• comments that impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation;
• breach of any of the terms of any of the social media platforms themselves:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Facebook’s guidelines for safe, respectful behaviour 
            2. The Twitter Rules 
            3. Instagram Community Guidelines.

Availability
We monitor our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm (except bank holidays and public holidays). We accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter, Facebook or Instagram’s downtime.

Answering your questions and queries
If you ask us a question or have a query for us, we may request personal information, e.g. a phone number or email address, so a member of our team can contact you. You need to be aware that any information you share with us by a direct message may be used by your social media provider in line with their privacy policy and terms and conditions.

Comments, feedback, compliments and complaints
The Hospice is keen to receive any communication about its services and activities. Complaints, compliments and feedback are a valid and important way of monitoring the organisation and an excellent way to deliver improvements and ensure good practice continues.

If you do alert us to feedback via one of our social media channels, we will encourage you to share more information with us, either by calling 01284 766133 or using our online form: https://stnicholashospice.org.uk/contact-us/complaints-and-feedback/

Replies and direct messages
We read every comment and respond wherever we can. We try to answer your questions where possible, but cannot handle every type of enquiry exclusively through social media.

Retweets (RT) and shares
We retweet and share content on social media when we believe it’s relevant to the work we do. If an individual, business, group or organisation is fundraising for us we will quite often like, love, and share posts and comments. This is not done to endorse any activities or products not connected to their support of the Hospice.

Following
Our decision to follow particular accounts does not imply endorsement. We follow accounts we believe are relevant to our work. This could include following accounts of companies and other commercial enterprises, or their employees, who comment on Hospice issues, or politicians from different political parties.