Guidelines for Clark College social media content

The purpose of the Clark College's official social media accounts is to provide students, employees, followers, and the interested community with information about our programs, groups, events, resources, emergency responses, and achievements.  

Clark College is dedicated to providing a meaningful educational experience for all of our students, and we value diversity and inclusion within our community. We recognize that a thriving academic community is not possible without our students, followers, and friends sharing their thoughts freely with one another on our official social media accounts. That being said, the views expressed in user comments on our social media platforms solely reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of Clark College.  

Additionally, Clark College will allow comments reflecting any point of view on a posted topic, but our expectation is that comments will be consistent with the college’s social media content guidelines. To ensure that the interactions on our official social media account further meaningful dialogue, we reserve the right to monitor and mediate the conversations by removing comments and/or posts that are or contain: 

• Comments that are not responsive to the topic, including, but not limited to, spam and similar comments promoting a product, service, or entity unrelated to the discussion; 
• Personal attacks on individuals or, threats; 
• Information that could compromise the safety of the college’s staff or students; 
• Political statements, including comments that endorse or oppose political candidates or ballot propositions; 
• Libelous comments (untrue statements intending to harm someone else) 
• Content that constitutes discriminatory harassment on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, perceived or actual physical or mental disability, pregnancy, genetic information, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, creed, religion, honorably discharged veteran or military status, citizenship, immigration status or use of a trained guide dog or service animal; 
• Obscenity; 
• Sexual content or links to sexual content; 
• Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity; 
• Comments not meaningfully related to the particular topic presented; 
• Repetitive posts of the same material that disrupt normal operation of the forum; 
• Hyperlinks to material not directly related to the discussion; 
• Content that violates a legal ownership interest of any other party; 
• Postings of, or requests for, other participants' personal information, such as phone number, address, financial accounts, etc.; 
• Impersonation of someone else; and/or 
• Commercial messages, including advertisements and solicitations and spam. 

Hiding, deletions, and banning 

Posts, comments, replies, or any public commentary containing any of the above list may be deleted. 

Multiple violations may result in the restriction of your ability to interact with Clark College on social media, blogs, or other online forums—not just on this particular account, but potentially on all other Clark College-affiliated social media accounts. 

Privacy and reporting 

We respect the privacy of your identity; however, the statements you make on social media are public, and Clark College staff may report them if they deem them to pose a threat, violate the Clark College Code of Student Conduct, trigger staff’s responsibilities as mandatory reporters, or otherwise require reporting to a relevant organization.  

Public records 

All posted content and commentary are public records subject to public disclosure under the Public Records Act. However, many social media platforms allow participants to delete their content and, in so doing, delete all content related to their original content (i.e., comment threads). Additionally, some social media platforms may delete content that is reported to them by others as violating their Terms of Service. The college does not have the resources to capture all such content if it is deleted by its original author or by the social media platform. If you see content that you feel needs to be retained, the college advises that you take screen shots of it and store it yourself, in case it is deleted by others. 

Last updated November 23, 2020