This page was created to share information about the organization with the general public. To promote appropriate information exchange with community members, the OCPD welcomes postings and comments that are related to the specific content posted on the site. Town of Ocean City Social Media Comment Policy
Purposes. The Town’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, Nextdoor, and
other similar platforms promote and disseminate information about the Town’s initiatives, events and announcements. These platforms are limited public forums for discussion with and among users about the posted initiatives, events and announcements. The Town values the opinions shared by its constituents through all of the Town’s social media platforms and reviews messages, retweets, and other user communications (“Comments”) on all of the Town’s social media platforms. Constructive discussions and Comments are encouraged. The Town does not discriminate based on viewpoint but may remove Comments and restrict access to users for violating this Policy. Comments posted will be monitored regularly but not 24/7. To facilitate the purposes of the social media platforms, Comments may be removed if they contain, constitute, or link to:
• Comments that are clearly off topic and not related to the post for which they are made or are clearly unrelated to governmental concerns;
• Disruptively repetitive content;
• Profane, obscene, violent, or sexual content;
• Defamatory or personal attacks, or content that promotes, fosters, or perpetuates discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, gender identity marital status, status with regard to public assistance, ethnicity, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation;
• Advertisements, promotions or solicitations of a commercial product or promotion of particular services;
• Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity, or content that violates a legal ownership of any other party or infringes on copyrights or trademarks in violation of Federal, State, County or Town law;
• Malicious or harmful software;
• “Spam”;
• Confidential, private or personally identifying information (PII) of any individual as defined by State law;
• Information that may compromise the safety or security of the public or public systems; and
• Threats of violence or threats to public safety. Users that make express or implied threats of violence or threats to public safety may be reported to the Town of Ocean City Police Department for investigation. The following rules apply to the Town social media platforms:
• Any content removed pursuant to this Comment 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 Comment Policy.
• To contest the restriction of access to a social media platform, the user must submit to the Communications & Marketing Director at [email protected], a written statement providing grounds for reinstatement. Requests shall be responded to on a reasonably timely basis, and access shall be restored if it is determined that the grounds for reinstatement are sufficient. A statement that the user will abide by this Comment Policy in the future shall be sufficient, except when a user has continued to violate the Comment Policy after having made such a statement.
• Users may contact the Communications & Marketing Director at [email protected] at any time 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 Town of Ocean City shall notify the public of any changes to this Policy and identify the changes. User-generated content. The Town 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 Town. 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. https://oceancitymd.gov/oc/news-room/social-media-links/
