Maine State Government
Dept. of Administrative & Financial
Services
Office of Information Technology
Social
Media Policy
I. Statement
of Policy
State of Maine
(the “State”) agencies may use social media technologies to enhance
communication, collaboration, and information exchange with citizens under the
following guidelines and procedures.
II. Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to define the use of social media by state
employees while contributing to or overseeing agency social media sites or
providing comments or updates to the agency’s social media identities.
In addition to this policy, social media content must be in compliance with all
state and agency policies. This includes
policies on harassment and discrimination, confidentiality, ethics, and
workplace violence, along with any applicable codes of conduct.
III. Guidelines
and Procedures
A. Each
agency head shall designate a Social Media Supervisor who will oversee all
social media requests and interactions. For those agencies that designate
someone other than their Web Coordinator, the designated person should work
closely with the Web Coordinator. OIT will maintain a list of Social Media
Supervisors It is the responsibility of the
agency to notify OIT of its agency’s designation.
B. The Social Media Supervisor
shall authorize use consistent with this policy and the agency head’s
direction. Agency employees shall
consult with their Social Media Supervisor prior to engaging in social media to
ensure that participation and representation on social media sites is
sanctioned. Legal counsel should be sought, when appropriate, prior to the
agency engaging in social media.
C. Each agency must read and
accept the social media site’s terms of use and be prepared to comply with the
terms of the accepted agreement.
D. Social
Media Use:
1.
Required Work-Related Use:
This includes use of social media that is sanctioned as part of
employee’s job function (e.g. when an employee, as part of their job
responsibilities, tweets on behalf of the agency on the agency’s Twitter
account). When this type of use is authorized the agency must ensure that:
a.
Any social media sites used by an agency to provide information
must be established in the name of the agency.
b.
Any information posted is authorized by the designated agency
Social Media Supervisor.
c.
Only authorized employees post information on the agency
sites.
d.
Information posted is in compliance with the agency’s Terms of
Comment (see V.A.2.).
e.
Personal opinions are not to be posted on agency sites.
f.
The purpose for using the social media site is defined and
understood by any authorized poster.
g.
Any authorized poster monitor the social media site to ensure
compliance with this policy and all other applicable state polices.
h.
Any authorized poster and the Social Media Supervisor remove
any scandalous, libelous, defamatory, pornographic, etc. material that is
posted.
i.
A process will be instituted to save and retain all postings,
outgoing and incoming, as all posted material is a public record.
2.
Personal use at work: This
includes personal use of social media while at work by an employee (e.g.
logging onto Facebook and providing personal updates to a Facebook page or
Twitter account during work hours using their own or their agency’s information
technology resources, when such activity is outside of the employee’s official
job function).
b.
Excessive personal use of social media during work hours is
prohibited.
3.
Personal use outside of work:
This includes use of social media by an employee in his or her personal
capacity outside of work.
a. Employees are
prohibited from posting official agency information on his or her personal
media site.
b.
Employees’ personal use should not be attributable to the agency
or employee’s job function at agency.
E. State
harassment and discrimination policies, confidentiality policies, ethics rules,
code of conduct, and workplace violence policies are applicable to all social
media usage.
F. Agencies
linking from a State web page to a
non-State social media site or landing page must indicate to users that the
site is not an official Maine
State government site and
that a third party’s website policies apply.
G. Social
media participants must abide by laws governing copyright and fair use of
copyrighted material owned by others. Entire
articles or publications should not be reprinted without first receiving
written permission from the publication’s author/owner. Never quote more than a short excerpt of
someone else’s work and, if possible, provide a link to the original. When referencing a law, regulation, policy,
or other website, if possible, provide a link or the citation.
H. Social
media sites contain communications sent to or received by state agency and are
therefore public records subject to State Records Retention law. These retention requirements apply regardless
of the form of the record (digital text, photos, audio, or video, for
example). See the record managements section of the
Secretary of State’s website for full details: http://www.maine.gov/sos/arc/records/state/index.html.
Each agency must ensure that it retains a copy of the
social media content in accordance with the State’s records retention
requirements. Agencies must review the social media service provider’s terms of
service for its records retention practices. While social media providers may
save content for some period of time, they generally will not save it
indefinitely. To the extent that the social media providers’ policies are
inconsistent with Maine’s
records retentions requirements, an agency must retain its own copies of social
media posts.
I. Agencies making use of
social media sites are to be aware that social media providers may incorporate
advertisements into its site. State procurement and ethics laws prohibit
employees or agencies from endorsing products or vendors. In addition, the .GOV registration program
guidelines (applicable for those websites that are hosted within the Maine.gov
domain) generally prohibit ad campaigns and endorsements. Thus, the agency must limit its association
with advertising by (1) amending the Terms of Service of the social media
provider if possible; (2) using, whenever possible, non-branded landing pages
within the social media website or (3) not joining the social media site.
IV.
Applicability
This
policy applies to social media participation by all Executive Branch and semi
autonomous state agencies. As the technology evolves, this policy may be
amended to ensure consistency in the use of technologies by state employees.
Each agency’s statutes, policies and procedures regarding
confidential information apply to the use of social media. All federal and
state statues and policies apply including:
·
Policy Concerning the Use of State-Owned Information
and Technology I.T.) and Related Communications Equipment and Resources
V. Responsibility
A. Agency
Once an agency has decided to engage in the use of social
media, the agency will
1. Designate a Social Media Supervisor
who will authorize specific employees to post, update and monitor the agency’s
social media identity or page.
2. Create a Terms of Comment which
will describe how the agency intends to manage user contributions to the agency’s
social media site (such as an
agency’s wiki or a blog). The Terms of
Comment shall also describe the review process prior to posting comments and
the selection criteria for comment posting (e.g. on-topic, non-duplicative, not
obscene or offensive etc.). Comments
shall be monitored by authorized agency staff.
The Terms of Comment must be provided to each employee authorized by the
Social Media Supervisor to post information on behalf for the agency.
3. Clearly indicate to employees and
public users when social media used by the agency is hosted by a third party
that has its own privacy policy and terms of service.
4. Advise its employees using social
media sites that social media providers used by the agency may collect personal
information through use of the social media site; that this personal
information will be disseminated online via the social media site; and that its
dissemination will not be subject to the restrictions described in State of
Maine technology policies.
B.
OIT – OIT is responsible for
maintaining a list of agency Social Media Supervisors.
C.
Chief Information Officer of the
State of Maine - Title 5, Maine Revised Statutes, Chapter 163 §1973, Section 1, Paragraph B
authorized the Chief Information Officer to “set policies and standards for the
implementation and use of information and telecommunications technologies,
including privacy and security standards and standards of the Federal Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA), for information technology.
VI. Definitions
A. Landing page - A landing
page is the page website visitors arrive at after clicking on a link on another
website. It could be a home page, or any other page in a site.
B. Semi-autonomous State Agency
- An Agency created by an act of the Legislative Branch that is not a
part of the Executive Branch. This term does not include the Legislative and
Judicial Branches, Offices of the Attorney General, Secretary of State, State
Treasurer, and Audit Department.
C. Social Media Identity – A social media identity is a
user identity or account that has been registered on a third party social media
site.
D. Social Media or Networking – The terms
social media and social networking are used interchangeably. Social media is a set of technologies and
channels targeted at forming and enabling a potentially massive community of
participants to productively collaborate. Social media includes:
blogs, wikis, microblogging sites, such as Twitter™; social networking sites,
such as Facebook™ and LinkedIn™; video sharing sites, such as YouTube™; and
bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us™.
E. Social Media
Sites – Social media sites refer to websites that facilitate user
participation, networking and collaboration through the submission of user
generated content.
F. Social
Media Supervisor – The Social Media Supervisor is an individual within an
agency who oversees all agency social media sites and ensures compliance with
this and all other applicable state policies.
This individual is responsible for authorizing employees to post on
state sites and for the content of such postings. OIT will maintain a list of Social
Media Supervisors as designated by each respective agency.
G. Web
Coordinator – The Web Coordinator develops
website management plans for their agencies and submits these plans to OIT. A website management plan identifies roles
and responsibilities, site monitoring and evaluation, content maintenance,
oversight, user feedback and other aspects of an agency’s website. OIT
maintains a list of agency Web Coordinators.
VII. References
VIII. Document Information
A. Document
Reference Number: 37
B. Category:
Computing Environment and Platform
C. Adoption
Date: August 3, 2010
D. Effective
Date: August 3, 2010
E. Review
Date: August 3, 2011
F. Point
of Contact: Director, OIT Project Management Office
G. Approved By: Greg McNeal, Acting Chief
Information Officer, State House Station #138, Augusta, ME 04333, (207)
624-8800.
H. Position Title(s) or Agency responsible for enforcement:
Director, OIT Project Management Office
I. Legal
Citation: Title 5, Maine Revised Statutes, Chapter 163 §1973, Section 1,
Paragraph B authorizes the CIO to “set policies and standards for the
implementation and use of information and telecommunications technologies.
