Policies

Farmingdale State College Social Media Policy

Policy Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to establish clear expectations of the acceptable use of social media by faculty, staff, and students working for Farmingdale State College. The policy’s intent is to permit a high degree of freedom for individuals to employ social communication platforms for the benefit of the College while ensuring accuracy and appropriate protections for the College’s overall brand, image, and reputation.

Persons Affected

Faculty, Staff, Students

Policy Statement

Farmingdale State College (FSC) encourages the appropriate use of social media as a method for communicating ideas and information to the public and for receiving responses and commentary from the public in support of the educational mission of the College.

This policy applies to faculty, staff and student workers (i.e. student assistants, work study employees, volunteers, and interns) who are managing official FSC social media accounts and its content. Professional use of official FSC social media accounts is to remain separate from personal use. Faculty and staff may not represent FSC on their personal accounts. They may share content from College accounts and comment but not post original College content on their own pages.

Faculty, staff, and student workers managing official FSC social media accounts are expected to release accurate content and information to the public and comply with all applicable laws and policies. They must also implement and maintain reasonable safeguards to protect the security, confidentiality, and integrity of the private information and adherence to campus policies and federal and state legislation regarding such data. This includes but is not limited to:

• copyright, trademark
• fair use
• FERPA
• HIPPA
• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
• accessibility standards, Farmingdale’s web accessibility and acceptable use policies, the Student Code of Conduct and defamation laws as well as adherence to other FSC policies and procedures.

Marketing and Communications is responsible for the oversight of the College’s official social media accounts. Faculty and staff interested in creating accounts for their department, office, or group must request an account through Marketing and Communications and follow the Social Media Guidelines. Log in information must be shared with Marketing and Communications. Once permission is granted to create a social media account, it is the responsibility of the requesting department to manage the account and post content. Social media accounts that have been inactive for one year will be deleted. Farmingdale State College reserves the right to submit requests to social media publishers to have any account terminated that appears to be representing Farmingdale State College without authorization.

Release of confidential College or third-party information is prohibited. Consent must be obtained prior to positing photos or videos on social media. The Photo/Video Authorization and Release Form should be used when necessary. Content and information released on social media is equivalent in stature to content and information released to the press and the public in any other format. It is therefore subject to review, revision, or removal at the request of Marketing and Communications.

The College reserves the right to remove posts or comments that are obscene, profane, hateful, racist, violent, defamatory, offensive, threatening, abusive, spam, advertising in nature or are unrelated to the content posted, or endorsement of or opposition of any person campaigning for a political office or promoting or opposing any ballot proposal. Multiple off topic posts by a single user, or repetitive posts copied and pasted by multiple users may also be removed. Farmingdale State College also reserves the right to remove posts or comments that violate applicable laws and policies.

The primary source of information during an emergency is the FSC website. Social media accounts managed by Marketing and Communications will be updated accordingly following the announcement on the website. Faculty, staff, and student workers may repost emergency information from the website onto their official FSC social media accounts but must not post inaccurate information or personal inferences regarding emergencies.

In order to maintain the integrity of the College brand, all those managing FSC social media accounts must use FSC’s graphic identity standards and communications style guide. FSC’s logo cannot be used for any personal endorsements or used to promote a product, business or cause unrelated to FSC. The College will act to prevent any person or group from misrepresenting their affiliation to the College or their authorization to represent the College, and will protect its intellectual property, including official marks and copyrighted material, from misuse or abuse.

Procedures

1. To request a social media account for your office, department or group, email fscsocialmedia@farmingdale.edu. All log in and password information must be submitted to the Office for Marketing and Communications.
2. All employees managing social media accounts must follow the Social Media Guidelines.
3. Profile and header graphics must be approved for use by Marketing & Communications. For more information, please contact fscsocialmedia@farmingdale.edu.

Definitions

Social Media – Internet or mobile digital tools and systems that are available to the general public and that are used to share and/or receive information or conversation.

Student Workers – students employed, volunteering, interning or working in another capacity for a department or area of the College responsible for managing official FSC social media accounts and its content.

Related Documents

Photo/Video Model Authorization and Release Form

Graphic Identity Standards and Communications Style Guide

Acceptable Use Policy for Computer Facilities

Web Accessibility Policy

Student Code of Conduct

Social Media Guidelines

Responsible Office

Marketing and Communications

Policy History

Date of Approval: December 10, 2021