Senator Steve Hershey Social Media Policy

Social-Media Platforms

This web page constitutes the Office of Senator Steve Hershey/ Citizens for Steve Hershey Social Media Policy (the “Policy”). As described below, this Policy applies to the following social-media platforms:

• Facebook: Senator Steve Hershey Facebook.com/SenatorSteveHershey

• Instagram: Senator William Folden (@SenatorSteveHershey)

Purposes. The Senator Hershey Facebook and Instagram platforms promote and disseminate information about Senator Hershey’s initiatives, events, legislation, constituent information, campaign and personal announcements, and are limited public forums for discussion with and among users about the posted initiatives, events, legislation, constituent information, campaign and personal announcements.

Vigorous, constructive conversations are encouraged within comments, messages, retweets, and other user communications (“Comments”). The Office of Senator Hershey/Friends of Steve Hershey does not discriminate based on viewpoint, but may remove Comments and restrict access to users for violating this Policy. The Office of Senator Hershey/Friends of Steve Hershey reviews Comments on all of the Senator’s social-media platforms. The Office of Senator Hershey/Friends of Steve Hershey is interested to hear the opinions of constituents through all of those platforms.

Comments

To facilitate the purposes of the social-media platforms, Comments may be removed if they contain, constitute, or link to:

o Malicious or harmful software;

o Advertisements, promotions, or solicitations of a commercial product or service;

o Confidential, personally identifying, or private information as defined by State law;

o Profanity, nudity, indecency, or obscenity;

o Threats of violence or to public safety 1 ;

o Copyrighted materials in violation of State or federal law;

o Disruptively repetitive content;

o Remarks that are clearly unrelated to governmental or constituent concerns; or

o Remarks that are clearly unrelated to the subject matter of any post ever made on

the platform by or on behalf of the Senator.

Rules

The following rules apply to the social-media platforms:

Users that make express or implied threats of violence or to public safety may be reported to the Maryland State Police for investigation.

• Any content removed pursuant to this Policy will be retained for one year.

• Users may be temporarily or permanently restricted from accessing the social-media platform if they repeatedly and consistently violate this Policy.

• Users may contact the Office of Senator Steve Hershey/Friends of Steve Hershey at any time at [email protected] to identify Comments or other conduct in violation of the Policy. Until a Comment in violation of the Policy is removed, users should ignore it or, if responding, do so in compliance with the Policy.

• The Office of Senator Steve Hershey/Friends of Steve Hershey shall notify the public of any changes to this Policy and identify the changes.

User-generated content

The Office of the Senator monitors the social-media platforms, but is not responsible for content generated by users on these platforms. A Comment is the opinion of the commentator only. Publication of a Comment does not necessarily imply endorsement of, or agreement by, the State of Maryland or Senator Hershey. Comments and content should be understood to be entirely public, and users should not write Comments with any information that they consider, or would like to keep, confidential.