Social Media Policy

Broome Community College encourages the appropriate use of social media as a method for communicating ideas and information, and as part of the educational mission. This policy governs employees of BCC and the behavior of individuals as they utilize a variety of social media technologies and is not limited to any specific media format.

Social media is defined as internet or mobile digital tools and systems used to share and/or receive information or conversation. (Examples: Facebook, YouTube, Linked-in)

Rules of Use:

Unless specifically authorized by the Public Affairs or Marketing and Communications Office, no BCC employee may create an "official" SUNY presence on any form of social media, now in existence, or created in the future, or represent themselves as a spokesperson or authorized representative of BCC.
Faculty or staff using a BCC email address to create or post comments to social media platforms, or who reference their professional affiliation to BCC, should include the following disclaimer: The comments and/or postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily reflect BCC’s opinion, strategies or policies.

Departmental Social Media Sites:

Permission must be granted by the Public Affairs office for a department to create their own “official” Broome Community College social media site. The Public Affairs office will require administrative access to the created site.
The Public Affairs or Marketing and Communications Office may request that content managers from various departments administer their own official social media sites. In these cases, “back up” administrative access must be made available to the Public Affairs or Marketing and Communications Office at all times.

Important content considerations:

BCC’s Public Affairs Office utilizes various social media platforms to present information and content to the public and receive feedback from the public and the BCC community. Content and information released on social media is equivalent to content and information released to the press and the public in any other format, including press releases, letters to the media, open letters to the public, etc. Care must be taken that content and information released over social media is accurate, does not violate applicable laws (including, but not limited to, copyright, trademark and defamation law) or SUNY policy.

Official BCC social media may allow members of the public to comment or react to posted content and information. Employees of BCC acting in their personal capacity may post or comment anonymously or identifiably.

BCC invites discussion of important ideas and issues through social media. However, BCC reserves the right to remove posts or comments that are obscene, defamatory, offensive, contain threats of violence, abusive, spam or advertising, or unrelated to the content or information. BCC also reserves the right to remove posts or comments that violate applicable laws including, but not limited to, copyright and trademark, or those that violate the use policies promulgated by the applicable social media provider.

Personal Use:

Personal use of social media on personal time is not governed by this policy. However, individuals may not make statements or take actions at any time on social media that violate applicable law or College policy.

Personal use of social media on State time is governed by the New York State Public Officers Law and other federal, State and Local laws; the State University of New York Acceptable Use Policy as issued by the Office of Administrative Systems; and SUNY Human Resources policies.

Other Applicable Policies: