Guidelines for Official Social Media Channels

The Nova Scotia Legislature has four official social media channels: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

The channels are managed by staff at the Nova Scotia Legislative Library. The YouTube channel is co-managed with Legislative TV.

Content

Our channels are impartial information resources containing authoritative, factual information on the work of the Legislature, including the House of Assembly and its committees.

If you follow us, you can typically expect between 2-5 tweets or posts a day on Twitter and 2-3 post per week on Facebook and Instagram. If the House of Assembly is sitting, or there is a special event, you may expect more. The amount of YouTube content also varies with House and committee schedules.

Availability

We will update and monitor our accounts during regular office hours, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm, Monday to Friday (Atlantic Standard Time). We may occasionally provide extra updates outside of regular hours as necessary.

Our social media channels may occasionally be unavailable and we accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube downtime.

Responses and interactions

We welcome feedback from our followers and subscribers and endeavour to join the conversation where possible. We are not always able to reply individually to all the messages we receive via our social media channels, however.

As an impartial information service, we cannot engage on issues of a partisan nature or government policy.

Followers and subscribers

Followers and subscribers of our social media channels are not endorsed by the Nova Scotia Legislature.

We are not responsible for, and do not endorse, the content of any accounts or pages we follow, subscribe to or like. Currently, we follow, subscribe to, or like official accounts of Nova Scotia Members of the Legislative Assembly and other users we believe are relevant to our objectives.

Comments and moderation

We encourage users to engage with us and other users through our social media channels. Comments should be respectful, relevant, accurate and consider the privacy of other users.

We do not endorse, agree with, or guarantee the accuracy of comments posted by our followers and subscribers. All comments represent the views of the individual user and do not represent the Legislature, its staff, or Members of the House of Assembly.

We reserve the right to remove unacceptable comments and block users who violate our guidelines.

Unacceptable content includes:

  • politically partisan comments;
  • offensive language (racist, sexist or derogatory) or hate speech;
  • defamatory or libellous statements;
  • profanity or obscene content;
  • threats or harassment against named or unnamed groups or individuals;
  • spam messages;
  • commercial promotions or endorsements;
  • privacy violations, including names or contact information of Legislature employees;
  • copyright violations.

Comments posted to our channels are post-moderated.

Liability

Users are legally responsible for their own posts in our social media channels. In using the channels, users agree to these guidelines and the terms of service for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

We are not responsible for, and do not endorse, any content posted by our users.

Copyright

Information posted in our social media channels is subject to the Copyright Act. All users are expected to follow the provisions of the Copyright Act.

Material produced by Legislative TV is subject to specific terms of use as directed by the Speaker of the Nova Scotia House of Assembly.

Contact

Any questions on these guidelines should be directed to info@nslegislature.ca.