Social Media Comment Policy
NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration uses social networking platforms to connect and interact with different audiences. At this time, we share content on Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter. Each of these social networking platforms has their own privacy policy. Follow these links to learn more about a specific privacy policy: Facebook, Flickr (owned by Yahoo!), and Twitter. Please see our privacy policy for more information and read more about how the U.S. federal government uses social media.
We encourage public interaction and communication about the content we post on our social media accounts. However, this does not imply that the Office of Response and Restoration agrees with or accepts the content, opinions, or views expressed within any public comment. The person who posts a comment is solely responsible for the content of the comment.
While we do not discriminate against views or opinions posted to our social networking accounts, we reserve the right to remove or not approve any comment. A comment will not be edited or modified to remove unacceptable content; the entire comment will simply be deleted. Some of the reasons we may remove or not approve a comment are listed below:
- Abusive, vulgar, obscene, racist, threatening, or harassing comments.
- Libel, slander, or personal attacks of any kind, including the use of offensive terms that target specific individuals or groups.
- Spam, including content that promotes products or services or contains gratuitous links (links or references to other NOAA webpages or federal government sites are acceptable).
- Makes unsupported accusations.
- Comments that suggest or encourage illegal, dangerous, or destructive activity.
- Duplicate posts.
- Clearly off topic.
- Political campaigning or lobbying.
- Comments that are really customer support questions (for that, please contact us via our agency website).
The Office of Response and Restoration is unable to post comments from children under the age of 13 due to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If you are 12 years old or younger, you may e-mail us rather than posting a comment.
Moderating and posting comments should only be expected to occur during normal business hours.
NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration, part of the Department of Commerce, uses various third-party social media services for outreach. Use of these social media services may require a membership that subjects users to policies, requirements, or rules beyond the control of the Department of Commerce. The Department of Commerce does not endorse membership in a particular social media service and takes no responsibility for any content that may be posted by other users. Communications made through social media services will not, in any way, constitute a legal or official notice to the Department of Commerce or any of its entities, officials, or employees. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the federal government.