Social Media

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Vestavia Hills Social Media Comment Moderation Policy

The City of Vestavia Hills utilizes various social media networking platforms to connect and interact with audiences. Each of these social networking platforms has their own privacy policy, which users are encouraged to read. Use of these social media platforms may require a membership that subjects users to policies, requirements or rules beyond the control of the City of Vestavia Hills. The City of Vestavia Hills does not endorse membership in a particular social media networking service and takes no responsibility for content that may be posted by other users. Communications made through social media networking services will not, in any way, constitute a legal or official notice to the City of Vestavia Hills or any of its entities, officials or employees.

Please note that social networking accounts created by and maintained by individual public officials are the responsibility of that official and are neither monitored nor maintained by the City of Vestavia Hills.

Public interaction and communication about the content posted on City social media accounts is encouraged. However, this does not imply that the City of Vestavia Hills agrees with or accepts the content, opinions or views expressed within any public comment. The commenter is solely responsible for the content of the comment. By posting comments or other material, users grant the City of Vestavia Hills, and anyone viewing official City of Vestavia Hills accounts or websites, permission to copy, distribute, make derivatives, display or perform the commenter’s work publicly and free-of-charge.

These social media networking platforms serve as a limited public forum and all published content is monitored. The City does not discriminate against views or opinions posted to its social networking accounts and reserves the right to remove or not allow any comment deemed unacceptable by the account moderator. A comment will not be edited or modified to remove unacceptable content; the entire comment will simply be deleted.

Account moderators strive to be as responsive as possible, but accounts are not monitored 24 hours per day. Therefore, moderation and posting on official City of Vestavia Hills accounts should only be expected to occur during normal City of Vestavia Hills business hours, Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, excluding published holidays or unanticipated closure dates.

Reasons to remove, hide or decline to approve a comment include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Abusive, vulgar, obscene, racist, inflammatory, threatening or harassing comments.
  • Libel, slander or personal attacks of any kind, including the use of offensive terms that target specific individuals or groups, including comments that reference or promote discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, age, religion, gender, marital status, national origin, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability.
  • Contains content, including photos, comments and/or links of a sexual nature.
  • Spam, including content that advertises, solicits or promotes commerce, products or services or contains gratuitous links.
  • Solicitation of funds through any medium for any reason, including but not limited to political fundraising, personal fundraising (i.e. GoFundMe or Venmo) or donations for any other cause.
  • Contains unsupported accusations or commentary that is distinctly off topic.
  • Comments that suggest or encourage illegal, dangerous or destruction activity.
  • Content infringes on copyrights.
  • Political campaigning or lobbying, to include support or opposition of political campaigns or candidates, political parties or groups or political ideology.
  • Contains information that reasonably could compromise individual or public safety.
  • Comment regarding an ongoing investigation of any sort.
  • Procurement-sensitive information related to any current/future City of Vestavia Hills acquisitions.
  • Comments requesting resident support, including requests for sanitation service, road repairs, etc., should be submitted via Vestavia Hills Connect at https://vhal.org/vestavia-hills-connect.
  • Comments or questions from media sources (television, radio, print, etc.). Media inquiries must be submitted via phone, email or text to the appropriate City of Vestavia public information/communications contact. Questions submitted as social media comments or via social media private message will not answered. Contact information is available at https://vhal.org/contact.

The City of Vestavia Hills reserves the right to disable the commenting option on social media platforms as deemed necessary by the account moderator.

For the purposes of this policy, any reference to City of Vestavia Hills also includes Vestavia Hills Fire, Vestavia Hills Police, Vestavia Hills Public Library and Vestavia Hills Parks and Recreation.