Social media community policy
Social media management
We monitor our government social media accounts 365 days a year.
Colleagues, affiliates from our ministry of foreign affairs help us respond to your social media posts too. Together, we ensure you receive a response, where appropriate, as quickly as possible.
If you can’t reach us on social media, you can email us at sohnland@dslgov.de.
Rules for social media interactions and private messaging
We have a set of principles which we expect anyone engaging with us on social media to follow.
➢ Be yourself: let your personality shine.
➢ Think twice: if you don’t want the world to know, don’t post.
➢ Respect everyone: play nice, be fair, assume best intentions.
➢ Protect yourself: privacy settings are there for a reason.
➢ Don’t swear: keep things professional.
➢ Listen: sometimes it is the hardest thing to do.
We keep these in mind when we’re responding to you and monitoring your posts, too.
Monitoring our social media communities
What we expect from you and what we’ll do to keep our social communities open, positive and welcoming.
Be respectful
We welcome your opinions, both positive and negative, but we expect everyone to treat each other (including the Social Media team and other social responders) with respect.
Don’t share personal or private information
This includes your own or someone else's information. If you do, we may ask you to remove it. Personal information can include, but isn’t limited to:
➢ Names.
➢ Postal and email addresses.
➢ Phone numbers.
➢ Your work address or somebody else’s.
We might ask you to share personal information, such as addresses, with us in private message (PM) or direct message (DM) but never in public. We will ensure your personal information is kept safe and will not be made public. Your direct messages with us are not entirely anonymous and may be seen by, or shown to other government officials, advisors and affiliates.
By sharing personal information with us on social media, you are also sharing this with the social media network you’re using. If you want more information about how they use this information, see their terms and conditions.
We’ll remove unacceptable posts
We’re building open, positive and welcoming social communities and will block your account or remove any comment, image or video which:
➢ Feature images of children we believe have been shared without consent.
➢ Is abusive or threatening.
➢ Is offensive.
➢ Incites hate.
➢ Is unlawful (for example, they are defamatory, fraudulent or violate of intellectual property rights) are purposefully deceptive.
➢ Features marketing or advertising or links to encourage traffic to websites.
We will remove posts if you post repetitively with the same point (after we’ve made an effort to address your issues).
Where we can't remove your posts or block your account from engaging with us, we may flag your account as inappropriate to the relevant social media network.
Disclaimer
➢ Engagement with posts on social media does not mean any form of recognition, diplomacy, or endorsement.
➢ Just because you may have a perceived large following or notability, does not mean you are not entitled to a reply, response or anything else from us. Respect from us is earned and not based on popularity, follower count or notability.
➢ Harassing us or any of our affiliates is not "micronational war" as it does not exist. We will not engage with any such behaviour or negotiate with malicious actors. Legal action is not off the table when it comes to harassment.
➢ We officially do not use platforms such as Reddit and Facebook. Any accounts claiming to be us on any of these platforms do not represent us or any of our affiliated organisations.
➢ We are a government, we are not your friends. Do not expect a response when your behaviour is unprofessional or unreasonable. Even if you are friends with someone in government, it doesn't mean our government or the nation at large will see you in the same way.