Recommendations for social media pages and accounts at UiO
Communication is a key part of the university?s mission, and UiO uses social media as a channel for knowledge communication.
UiO has considered the legality and the risks associated with the use of social media from a privacy law perspective. Knowledge communication is an eligible interest that is viewed as more important than the potential risks to the users? privacy. There are, however, some precautions, predispositions, and procedures that must be in place to ensure compliance with privacy laws, including the following recommendations for social media. This was discussed by the UiO?s management and adopted in the autumn of 2022.
Based on this, the Department of Communication and External Relations made recommendations that apply to all social media accounts where UiO is the sender to ensure they follow guidelines for privacy.
The recommendations are available on our employees’ web pages and are updated as needed.
General recommendations for all pages/accounts????
- Responsibility: Each faculty has an overall responsibility for the social media accounts connected to the faculty, for instance accounts for institutes and centres. where UiO is or is perceived as the sender. The faculty should have an overview of all accounts and pages. There should be a plan for all existing and new accounts/pages which lays out the goals, resource requirements, and management (see suggested pptx in Norwegian) All pages and accounts must be registered in Meldeappen (in Norwegian).?
- Design profile and naming: All pages/accounts in Meta where UiO is the sender must have an identifiable UiO profile, related to both naming, layout, and content. See UiO's?design manual for social media.
- Recommended platforms: We recommend using the platforms Facebook and Instagram (Meta), Twitter, and Linkedin. As of March 2023, UiO has one TikTok account. We do not recommend establishing new TikTok or Snapchat accounts. Other or new channels should be assessed separately, see point 1.
- Business Manager:?All pages/accounts in Meta (Facebook and Instagram) must be business accounts?and managed through Meta Business Manager (BM). We recommend that the faculty is the main owner in BM, and that subpages are in the same BM. All access to the different accounts is to be monitored through BM. New and old accounts must be added in BM. The accounts must have a domain verification in BM. To have the domain verified, send the link/name of the page and the verification code for the DNS TXT that you find in BM to social media@uio.no. You can have both a UiO.no and a faculty-specific subdomain, but only units with a UiO website shall be included in the BM. This means that certain centres/collaborative projects, for example with several equal actors, must have their own BM.
- Messages on Facebook (Messenger)?should be turned off.?
- Privacy statement: All pages/accounts must have a privacy statement (under the “About” section), where the point of contact for the page/account is clearly communicated.
- Moderation: There should be a plan in place for moderation and monitoring of all pages/accounts, which means that for instance comments should be regularly controlled and followed up. All content must be within the constraints of freedom of speech, ethically responsible, and not intended to harm anyone. It is the responsibility of the person or unit in charge of the page/account to ensure this. The extent of moderation and monitoring will vary from account to account, and it is the responsibility of the owner of the account to consider this.
- Data collection: Pages and functions in Meta should not be used to collect data. Among other things, we will not use plug-ins from Meta on our pages, not encourage sharing or commenting on posts or make surveys that can encourage users to leave personal or sensitive information of the type “Special categories of personal data”. See more information about this on this page from the Norwegian Data Protection Authority (in Norwegian only). This kind of information requires extra protection, such as race, ethnicity, religion, health, sexual orientation, and more.
For instance, one cannot ask about ethnicity in connection with a research project, to encourage specific groups to sign up. The person responsible for the page must also be aware of this in the comment section and remove content where this is shared. This type of information should not be used as a parameter for a page or a post, i.e., such personal information cannot be used to target content or create pages/accounts towards specific target groups. - Consent: Everyone that is photographed or filmed for content on the page must provide verbal consent at a minimum for the material to be used on social media. A written consent form has to be signed when the content is used for advertising purposes. This form must state how long UiO has the right to use the content in question.
- Deletion:?Content that contains recognizable images or videos of people should not remain published forever. The plan for the account/page must contain information about how long the content will remain. We recommend deleting such content after two years. This timeframe must also be reflected in the consent form.
UiO’s central accounts
The Department for Communication and External Relations manages, coordinates, and develops the central accounts owned by UiO on social media:??
Send us tips!
An editorial team develops and produces content for social media, but the staff always appreciate tips on activities, projects, or what you think would make good content for our channels. If you have any tips, feel free to send them to sosialemedier@admin.uio.no.