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Social media community guidelines

Our social media community guidelines explain how ACT Government moderates and monitors social media accounts and channels including comments from the community.

The ACT Government social media accounts are managed by 8 ACT Government directorates. This includes:

  • Canberra Health Services
  • Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development Directorate
  • City and Environment Directorate
  • Digital Canberra
  • Education Directorate
  • Health and Community Services Directorate
  • Infrastructure Canberra, and
  • Justice and Community Safety Directorate.

Find out more about our directorates and agencies.

Community Guidelines

To keep our social media pages respectful and safe for everyone, our moderators may hide, delete or report comments that contain:

  1. Offensive, abusive, or violent language
  2. Hateful or discriminatory remarks including comments based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or political beliefs
  3. Defamatory, harmful or false statements about others
  4. Sexually explicit material
  5. Solicitations, advertisements, or endorsements of commercial organisations
  6. Spam, link baiting or files that may contain viruses or malware
  7. Copyright or intellectual property violations
  8. Repeated off-topic posts by the same user
  9. False, misleading or deceptive information
  10. Personal information about yourself or others (e.g. names, email or physical addresses, phone numbers, photographs)
  11. Any other content deemed inappropriate at the ACT Government’s discretion
  12. Violations of the social media platform’s terms and conditions.

Moderation

We aim to create a positive experience for everyone engaging with our social media pages. If users do not follow these guidelines, we may:

  • Ignore, hide, or delete comments
  • Block users from interacting with our accounts.

Our accounts are monitored during business hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm). Comments may be turned off outside these hours due to limited staff availability.

For questions about specific ACT Government programs or topics, we may refer you to the relevant directorate to ensure you receive the most accurate response.

While we moderate our accounts, they are not monitored continuously. Inappropriate content may occasionally appear and we will make reasonable efforts to remove it as soon as possible..

If you believe defamatory content has been posted on an ACT Government social media page, please send a direct message to the relevant page.

The page owner will follow appropriate processes and remove the content if necessary.

Image and video rights requests: Terms of use

If we request rights to publish your content on the WeAreCBR Instagram page, it is entirely your choice whether to share your content or not.

If you agree, we will publish the content with your social media handle or byline.

By responding and agreeing to our request you agree to the following:

  • You own all content and information you post or share with us including comments, photos, and videos (referred to as "User Content").
  • You grant to ACT Government a license to reproduce your User Content on the WeAreCBR Instagram account.
  • We may manipulate your User Content, including cropping and editing.
  • We may create advertisements within Instagram in connection with your User Content for the sole purpose of promoting the account, WeAreCBR.
  • Our license to your User Content is non-exclusive. This means you may use the User Content for your own purposes or let others use your User Content for their purposes.
  • Our license to your User Content is royalty free. This means we do not owe you anything else in connection with our use of your User Content.

Finally, our license is perpetual. This means that our license for your User Content lasts for an indefinite period of time.

By granting usage of your User Content you promise that:

  • You own all rights to your User Content or, alternatively, that you have the right to grant ACT Government the rights described above.
  • Your User Content does not infringe the intellectual property rights, privacy rights, publicity rights, or other legal rights of any third party.
  • You have the approval of all person/persons depicted in the User Content for ACT Government.

We may refuse to accept or transmit User Content for any reason. We may remove User Content from our channels for any reason.

Copyright and Intellectual Property

If you believe that a user has infringed on your intellectual property rights, or if we have taken down your materials due to suspicion of copyright infringement, and you would like to dispute the alleged infringement, please contact us.

Privacy

When your User Content is displayed as detailed above, your social media handle may be displayed as detailed above. ACT Government collects and processes this information as necessary for the performance of this contract between us. For more information, including how to exercise your rights in relation to the personal data we hold about you, please see our Privacy Policy.