Social Media Moderation Policy

Our office uses social media to inform and engage the public in our work, and to advertise career opportunities. 

Our channels include:

We encourage you to share your comments and questions and look forward to hearing from you.

Moderation

We endeavour to ensure that our channels are a trusted source of information and a space for respectful discourse. 

Our team will do their best to answer questions and point people to resources during regular offices hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PT Monday to Friday, excluding statutory holidays.

We want everyone to feel safe on our channels, which is why our office will not tolerate comments that are offensive, threatening or harassing in tone. We welcome feedback on our independent audit work or discussion of government policies and programs, but will not allow disparaging remarks about individuals or organizations.

We may hide, remove, block and/or report third-party posts that:

  • make unproven or unsupported accusations against individuals or organizations
  • make unproven, unsupported or factually inaccurate claims (e.g., conspiracy theories)
  • constitute spam, promote services or products
  • constitute spam through repetition (the same comment posted more than two times in a post)
  • invade anyone’s privacy or include identifying or personal information about someone other than yourself (please don’t post about people you know)
  • impersonate or plagiarize (comments where the sender is not the author)
  • are far off-topic or deviate from the flow of polite debate and discussion
  • are posted without the necessary rights, licences and consents
  • encourage conduct that may or would constitute a criminal offence or give rise to civil liability, or that otherwise violates any local, provincial, national or international law or regulation anywhere in the world
  • are racist, hateful, sexist, homophobic, slanderous, insulting, or threatening 
  • contain abusive, obscene, indecent or offensive language (this includes emojis)
  • include defamatory, abusive, harassing or hateful remarks
  • contain excessive links or contain code
  • contain links to partisan website(s)
  • identify any publicly elected representative or candidate regardless of their political affiliation, whether those comments are supportive or critical (we discuss policies, not people, and our office is independent of any political affiliation)
  • are contrary to the principles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Privacy 

If you wish to have a conversation with us via social media, please remember that these posts are within the public domain. To protect your privacy and that of others, please do not include personal information, such as phone numbers, addresses, email addresses or photos, in your posts. Social media accounts are hosted by third-party service providers outside of Canada, not on our servers. We encourage you to read social media platforms' terms of service and privacy policies before use.

Any personal information that you provide may be collected, used, and disclosed by the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia under s. 26(c) and 26(e) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for the purposes of engaging and consulting with the public.

Audit suggestions

You are encouraged to contact us with feedback, comments, concerns or queries, or audit suggestions but we require audit suggestion to be communicated through our website or the other traditional outlets listed on our contact webpage.

Disclaimer

Our office social media accounts follow and may share posts from accounts related to our work and that we think our followers may find interesting. We are not responsible for the content of third-party websites and accounts, and reposts should not be considered endorsements.

The staff of the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia may be active on social media under their own names as private citizens. Despite their professional affiliation, the content staff post does not represent any official position of our office.

Questions

If you have questions or comments about this policy or our use of social media, contact us.