Social media acceptable use policy

We’ll take immediate action on our accounts if content in any format (such as written comments, videos, images, GIFs, attachments, links, or emojis) is found to be:  

• Defamatory, slanderous, misleading or false 
• Abusive or threatening – this includes swearing, adapted spellings with the same meaning, etc 
• Intimidatory or accusatory towards our staff, trustees or other platform users 
• Inciting hate crime or hate crime words
• Obscene, profane or sexually oriented 
• Discriminatory in any way 
• Promoting illegal activity 
• Promoting individual products or services for commercial gain
• Completely off-topic 
• The same message posted multiple times, otherwise known as ‘spamming’ 
• Controversial, irrelevant and off-topic, otherwise known as ‘trolling’  

If we feel your content relates to the list above, we reserve the right to hide or delete it from our platforms. We’ll respond publicly to your content and via direct message asking you to remove it immediately. If you do not take action, we may block your access to our social media accounts. We’ll tell you that we’re doing this. 

Depending on the content, we will also screenshot the posts and consider legal action or send them on to the police for investigation. If we think that the content you post is explicit, we will take immediate action to delete the post and block your access to our accounts. 

Hate crime is defined as any incident that’s seen by the victim (or any other person) as being motivated by prejudice or hate towards their actual or perceived social identity.

Social identities include: 

• Disability 
• Gender identity 
• Race, ethnicity or nationality 
• Religion, faith or belief 
• Sexual orientation

Hate and harassment can take the form of criminal or non-criminal behaviour and can include offensive comments or images on social media or text messages. 

Find out more about hate crime, including how to report hate and harassment on gov.uk

We have a complaints policy which provides a fair complaints procedure which is clear and easy to use for anyone wishing to make a complaint. Anyone seeking to make a complaint via social media will be directed to this policy.

We have a zero-tolerance approach toward fraud and corruption in our organisation. If you make an allegation on our social media accounts against the CIEH, a member of staff or a trustee, we’ll ask you to report it (along with your evidence) to the Serious Fraud Office

If a CIEH member of staff, Trustee or representative experiences criticism or abuse online on their personal social media accounts related to their work with CIEH, they should report it to the Marketing and Communications Team or a relevant Manager and refer to the internal CIEH guidance. Where appropriate we may also refer to the Code of Ethics and fitness to practise rules