Social media moderation guidelines

The DEC has accounts on a number of social media platforms and we encourage you to connect with us on these networks. The following moderation guidelines relate to the DEC social media channels, including Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. We reserve the right to change these guidelines at any time.

DEC social media channels are reactively moderated. We will try to respond wherever possible, but may not be able to respond to all comments and queries on social media especially during appeal launch times.

When necessary we will exercise the right to mute, hide or delete posts, and in certain circumstances block or ban users. We cannot accept responsibility for the content of any comments. All opinions expressed by followers on the DEC’s social media pages represent the thoughts of the individual commenters and not those of the DEC.

We may remove content that:

  • Uses inappropriate language or hate speech (based on race, religion, gender, disability, nationality, sexuality or any other personal characteristic). We will decide whether a comment falls into any of these categories and our decision on whether to remove it or not is final.
  • Contains abusive, aggressive, hateful, hurtful, threatening, obscene, indecent or offensive language, or links to such material.
  • Contains swear words or other sorts of profanity.
  • Is libellous, defamatory or contains misleading or inaccurate accusations.
  • Is spam (for instance, promotions, sales, self-promotion, repeated posts with the same messages and so on).
  • Is completely irrelevant to the topic of conversation or items posted, or Is designed to cause a nuisance to the organisation or other users. This includes messages which aim to provoke a response or do not constructively add to the conversation.
  • Breaches any of the terms of the social media platforms themselves: X, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
  • Includes a user appearing to impersonate someone else without their consent.
  • Contains comments or imagery that violates the privacy of our staff or stakeholders, including sharing personal details such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details.
  • Encourages anything illegal or breaking the law - including but not limited to breach of copyright, defamation or contempt of court.

Serious breaches will be documented and reported to the relevant platforms or authorities.

Where the DEC’s social media channels share content from social media channels belonging to other individuals or organisations, this content is for information only and does not constitute endorsement or agreement with those individuals or organisations.

All links to other websites found on the DEC’s social media sites are provided as information to our followers, but such linking does not constitute an endorsement of those sites by the DEC, and we are not responsible for the content of external websites.

By submitting content to any DEC social media channel (wall posts, comments, photos, videos, links, etc.), you understand that this information is publicly available, and that the DEC may use this information in internal and external communications. If you do not wish to have your information published, please either make this clear to us or preferably do not post that information.

If you have any queries or concerns you can get in touch here.