Social Media

COMMENT POLICY

1. As a public entity the City must abide by certain standards to serve all its constituents in a civil and unbiased manner.
2. Comments or content containing any of the following inappropriate forms of content shall not be permitted and are subject to removal and/or restriction by the City: 
   1. Comments not related to the business of the city (or specific Department if Department-specific Site), or not relevant to the original topic;
   2. Violent, profane, obscene or pornographic content and/or language;
   3. Content that promotes, fosters or perpetuates discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or national origin;
   4.  Content that threatens or defames any person or organization;
   5. Content that is hateful or incites violence;
   6. Solicitation of commerce, including but not limited to, advertising of any non-government related event, or business or product for sale;
   7. Conduct in violation of any federal, state or local law;
   8. Encouragement of any illegal activity;
   9. Information that may tend to compromise the safety or security of the public or public systems
   10. Content that violates a legal ownership interest, such as a copyright, of any party
3. A comment posted by a member of the public on any City of Balch Springs, Texas Social Media site is the opinion of the commentator or poster only, and publication of a comment does not imply endorsement of, or agreement by, the City of Balch Springs, Texas, nor do such comments necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of the City of Balch Springs, Texas.
4. The City of Balch Springs, Texas reserves the right to deny access to City of Balch Springs, Texas Social Media sites for any individual, who violates the City of Balch Springs, Texas’s Social Media Policy, at any time and without prior notice.
5. Departments shall monitor their Social Media Sites for comments requesting responses from the City and for comments in violation of this policy.
6. When a City of Balch Springs, Texas employee responds to a comment, in his/her capacity as a City of Balch Springs, Texas employee, the employee’s name and title should be made available, and the employee shall not share personal information about himself or herself, or other City employees.
7. All comments posted to any City of Balch Springs, Texas Facebook sites are bound by Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, located at http://www.facebook.com/terms.php, and the City of Balch Springs, Texas reserves the right to report any violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to Facebook with the intent of Facebook taking appropriate and reasonable responsive action.
8. All comments posted to any City of Balch Springs, Texas Twitter sites are bound by Twitter's Terms of Service, located at https://twitter.com/tos, and the City of Balch Springs, Texas reserves the right to report any violation of Twitter's Terms of Service to Facebook with the intent of Twitter taking appropriate and reasonable responsive action.

REPORTING/REMOVAL OF UNAUTHORIZED COMMENTS

The City requires that Department-designated Social Media Administrators immediately notify the City Manager’s Office if there is any posted material that may be inappropriate, that violates this Policy, or any City policy, is illegal, or that potentially infringes the copyrights or other rights of any persons. The City Manager’s Office will investigate and respond to all reports of potential violations of this Policy.

Any content removed based on these guidelines must be retained by the sponsoring Department for a reasonable period of time, including the time, date and identity of the poster, when available. Upon removal of content, the Social Media Administrator shall notify the commenter that their response has been deemed inappropriate and removed due to inconsistency with the City’s content requirements.

The City reserves the right, at any time and without prior notice, to deny access to the Social Media site to any individual who violates this Policy.

TERMS OF USE

Each type of social media maintains a “Terms of Use” agreement. All comments posted to any City Social Media Site are bound by these Terms of Use and the City reserves the right to report any user violation.

MODERATION OF THIRD-PARTY CONTENT

The agency does not necessarily endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify or agree with Third Party comments, messages, posts, opinions, advertisements, videos, promoted content, external hyperlinks, linked websites (or the information, products or services contained therein), statements, commercial products, processes or services posted on any Social Media Site.

This agency social media site serves as a limited public forum and all content published is subject to preservation and disclosure in accordance with Texas Public Information Act. 

User-generated posts may be rejected or removed when the content includes any of the following:

•    Incitement of violence or violent behavior

•    Defamation or spread of misinformation

•    Copyrighted or commercial material 

•    Fraudulent material or accusations

•    Obscene or illegal material. 

We do not allow information intended to compromise the safety or security of the public or public systems. You participate at your own risk, taking personal responsibility for your comments, your username and any information provided.

EMERGENCY POSTINGS

Social media sites are not monitored 24/7. If there is an emergency, contact 911.

RETENTION

Social media sites contain communications sent to or received by the Agency and its employees, and such communications are therefore public records

These retention requirements apply regardless of the form of the record (e.g. digital text, photos, audio, and video). The Department maintaining a site shall preserve records pursuant to a relevant records retention schedule.