Social Media Policy for University Employees

The purpose of this policy is to define the circumstances under which Tufts University employees, including faculty and student employees, may use social media to represent the university, communicate university policy, or represent an official university position. In addition, this policy applies to personal use of social media to the extent that such activities are covered by existing university policies, take place during work hours, involve the use of university resources, or may be construed as official representations of the university.

The term “social media” refers to any web-based and mobile technologies that enable individual or entities to disseminate or receive information, communicate, or otherwise interact. The term includes email, texting, messaging, social networking, blogging, and so on, through providers such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and others.

Section 1

For all employees:

As an employee of the university, you are personally responsible for any social media activity you conduct using a university email address or on a university website; and/or which can be traced back to a university domain; and/or which expressly or implicitly identifies you as a university faculty member, staff member, or student employee.

You must observe and follow, if applicable, (i) existing university policy and agreements, such as the employee handbook and employment agreement(s) with the university, the university’s policies on the use of the university’s information systems and the university’s anti-harassment and discrimination policies, (ii) the policies of the particular online/social networking platform (e.g., Instagram) governing the use and activity conducted on their sites (sometimes referred to as “Terms of Use”), and (iii) applicable law.

You may not use social media to post or display comments about coworkers or supervisors or the university that are vulgar, obscene, threatening, or intimidating, or that violate the university’s workplace policies against discrimination, harassment, or hostility on account of sex characteristics, age, race/color, national origin/ethnicity, shared ancestry, religion, sex/gender, gender identity and expression (including a gender non-conforming and/or transgender identity), disability, or other protected class, status, or characteristic. As a university employee, you have the ability to remove from university-sponsored social media accounts any content (e.g., a comment on a post) that is spam, commercial, off-topic, vulgar, obscene, threatening, or intimidating, or that violates the university’s workplace policies, and to report such content to your supervisor.

When posting to social media sites, you must honor the copyright and intellectual property rights of others, including the university. For guidance, consult the university’s Copyright Infringement policy.

Do not post any information or conduct any online activity that may violate local, state, or federal laws or regulations. Any conduct that is impermissible under the law if expressed in any other form or forum is impermissible if expressed through social media.

If, from your social media post, it is clear you are a university employee, or if you mention the university, or it is reasonably clear you are referring to the university or a position taken by the university, and also express a political opinion or an opinion regarding the university’s positions or actions, you must specifically note that the opinion expressed is your personal opinion and not the university’s position.

In any use of social media, employees—including faculty, staff, and student employees—must follow applicable state and federal requirements including, but not limited to, FERPA and HIPAA privacy statutes and NCAA regulations.

You may not use or disclose personal information about another individual or use or disclose the university’s confidential or proprietary information in any form of social media. Personal information includes an individual’s Social Security number, name, residential address, email address, phone number, financial account numbers, driver’s license number, medical information (including family medical history) and other highly sensitive information, as well as information covered by the university’s written information stewardship policy. In particular, you may not discuss a situation involving named or pictured individuals on a university-sponsored social media account without their knowledge or permission.

You should not create fake social media accounts (i.e., an account that appears to belong to a third party) or share false or misleading information through a university-sponsored social media account.

You should not promote for-profit businesses or their products nor should you realize any personal monetary profit from university-sponsored social media accounts.

Per the university’s captioning policy:

Any video with spoken dialogue requires closed captions (a technique of displaying the captioned text when it is desired and can be turned off).
Open captions (“burned-in captions,” typically visible at the bottom of the screen, which cannot be turned off) are acceptable on social media platforms that do not support closed captions.
Facebook, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube allow for some form of closed captioning, either through automatic captions made by the platform or by uploading a human-edited captioning file.
For Instagram, human-edited captioning files cannot be uploaded with a video/audio post or on Instagram Story, but the platform offers automatic captioning when using Instagram Story.
Use of automatic captions should be edited for accuracy on platforms that support that editing.
Audio files can’t be captioned, but a transcript should be made available.

All university rules regarding university confidential or proprietary information and personal information, including the university’s information stewardship policy, apply in full to social media, such as blogs or social networking sites. University confidential or proprietary information includes but is not limited to financial information, future business performance and business plans, business and brand strategies, and information that is or relates to university trade secrets. Any information that cannot be disclosed through a conversation, a note, a letter or an e-mail also cannot be disclosed via a social media account.

Section 2

For employees who post on behalf of a university school, department, division, or center:

If you are creating, managing or posting to a social media site on behalf of a university school, department, division, or center, you are considered to be acting in an official capacity, and the following rules apply:

Social media accounts that represent an official university entity (e.g., a school, department, division, or center) are considered to be university-sponsored social media. Creation of a university-sponsored social media site requires signoff from the senior administrator in that area.

University Communications and Marketing (UCM) maintains a list of university-sponsored social media accounts. Schools, departments, divisions, or centers that have one or more social media accounts or would like to establish an account must notify UCM so that they can be included on this list.

All university-sponsored social media accounts must designate a full-time employee responsible for monitoring the site and ensuring that the content is accurate and reasonably current. (University Communications and Marketing can advise you with regard to your preparedness to staff your social media accounts.) Out-of-date or unmonitored social media sites should be removed.

Individual schools, departments, divisions, and centers should post content that is representative of and germane to the work/activities of that school, department, division, or center. No individual school, department, division, or center should portray its social media site as representing the university as a whole. Consider this when naming university-sponsored pages or accounts, selecting a profile picture or icon, choosing accounts to follow, selecting content to post, and interacting with content posted by other accounts (“liking” and commenting on others’ posts, for instance). Names, profile images, and posts for university-sponsored social media should all be clearly linked to (and identified as part of) the particular school, department, division, or center, rather than to the institution as a whole.

Units that wish to use the university wordmark or other graphics in university-sponsored social media should consult with and obtain permission from University Communications and Marketing prior to use. In these cases, the requirements listed on the university’s brand website should be followed. Use of the university seal is not permitted in university-sponsored social media.

All social media accounts created by university employees on behalf of the university remain the property of Tufts University. Account information, including passwords and email addresses linked to a specific social media account, should be stored in a secured location that your supervisor is aware of and to which your supervisor has access.

In the event of an emergency, schools, departments, divisions, and centers should share only official information provided by the main university social media accounts and provided via official messages. Sharing information found online that has not been provided through official university channels may lead to incorrect or confusing information reaching the community. During an emergency, schools, departments, divisions, and centers should also delete or postpone any previously scheduled social media posts.

University Communications and Marketing maintains an overview of social media best practices. It is strongly recommended that those using or managing university-sponsored social media accounts follow these best practices.

Nothing in this policy is intended or shall be applied in contravention to the National Labor Relations Act, and in particular to the Section 7 rights of employees. Tufts respects the rights of all of our employees to engage in concerted, protected activity.