Worcester State’s social media is an important digital touchpoint where a diverse audience can interact and engage with the University as a dynamic, robust community. The purpose of University social media pages is to build positive brand awareness and affinity, engage prospective community members, disseminate timely and important information, and celebrate the values and experiences that make Worcester State unique.
Worcester State is committed to fostering a social media environment in which information and ideas from diverse perspectives can be shared and discussed safely and respectfully. When posting to official university accounts or university-affiliated accounts, all students, faculty, and staff are expected to adhere to university codes of conduct and acceptable use policy. The same expectations of civility and integrity when interacting with students, faculty, parents, alumni, donors, media, and other university affiliates apply online as elsewhere. Social media users should never post anything they know to be wrong or misleading and should not use university or university-affiliated accounts to promote or sell any products, services, or political candidates.
The Communications and Marketing team is responsible for all content posted to the University’s social media accounts. We believe one of the best ways to engage with our audiences is through the comments section on our posts. Comments and replies allow our audiences to exchange ideas and information, inspire critical thinking, and invite others to dialogue and collaboration. We also recognize the right of all individuals to free speech and the importance of academic freedom. We are therefore committed to keeping our comment sections open and unmoderated as much as possible.
That does not mean, however, that all types of speech are welcome or tolerated. While we encourage discussion and debate on our social media accounts, we will take steps to ensure they are not used to incite violence; threaten, defame or target individuals or groups; disclose private information; or otherwise contribute to an unsafe or unsupportive learning environment. These steps include limiting comments, blocking users, hiding content, and/or removing prohibited content and reporting it to the appropriate authorities and agencies.
The Communications and Marketing team also reserves the right not to address comments on our social media posts when doing so may incite further discord or harm. The decision to moderate comments will be made by the Communications and Marketing team in collaboration with University leadership and in accordance with social media best practices.
