We use Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn to share our work and engage with our audiences. We welcome comments, questions, discussion and constructive challenge on our posts. This policy explains how we moderate comments and interactions on our social media channels, and the action we may take when comments do not meet our standards.
What we welcome
We want our social media channels to be a space for open discussion. You’re welcome to:
• ask questions about our work
• share your own views, including views that disagree or challenge our position
• have respectful debates with us and with other people who comment
Disagreement and challenge are a normal and valuable part of public discussion, and we will not hide, delete or block people simply for expressing a different opinion.
What we don’t tolerate:
We will not tolerate comments that are unkind, abusive or intended to harm others. This includes, but is not limited to, comments that:
• are abusive, threatening or intimidating
• contain hate speech, discriminatory language or harassment based on characteristics such as race, religion, gender, sexuality, disability or age
• are defamatory, or contain unsubstantiated allegations against a named individual or organisation
• contain spam, unrelated advertising or repeated identical posts
• share personal or private information about another person without their consent
• are sexually explicit or contain graphic or violent content
• promote or encourage illegal activity
• appear to be from automated accounts (bots) or are part of a coordinated campaign to disrupt discussion
The action we may take
Depending on the nature and severity of a comment, we may take one of the following actions:
Hiding a comment. We may hide a comment so it’s no longer visible to the public, while leaving it visible to the person who posted it and their connections. We generally use this for comments that breach our standards but are not severe enough to warrant deletion.
Deleting a comment. We may delete a comment entirely where it seriously breaches our standards, for example if it contains hate speech, threats, harassment or illegal content, or where it discloses private information about another person.
Blocking an account. We may block an account from interacting with our channels where a person repeatedly breaches our standards after being hidden or having comments deleted, or in response to a single serious incident such as a direct threat or targeted abuse. Blocking prevents the account from commenting on, liking or messaging our channels.
We aim to apply these actions consistently and proportionately, and we reserve the right to take any of the above actions at our discretion where we consider it necessary to protect our staff, our audience, or the quality of discussion on our channels.
Platform terms of use
In addition to this policy, all comments and interactions on our channels are subject to the terms of use, community standards and community guidelines of the relevant platform:
• Instagram Community Guidelines
• Facebook Community Standards
• LinkedIn Professional Community Policies
We may report comments or accounts to the platform where we believe they breach the platform’s own terms, in addition to any action we take ourselves.
How we make decisions
Our Communications team reviews comments and makes moderation decisions in line with this policy.
We will endeavour to respond to all comments and direct messages we receive on social media. This may not always be possible during busier periods. If you have a general enquiry about East Anglia RFCA please email ea-info@rfca.mod.uk
Contact us
If you believe a decision has been made in error, or you want to raise a concern about our moderation of a comment, please contact us at earfcasocial@gmail.com
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available at this page.