Bendigo District Cricket Association POLICY – SOCIAL MEDIA

Code of Conduct

1. The Bendigo District Cricket Association (BDCA) recognises that social media is an important part of the way members communicate. The BDCA actively encourages members to participate in social media and share their experiences in cricket. The BDCA recognises the importance of the internet to improve and increase the flow of information, shaping public thinking about our organisation, members, sponsors and stakeholders. Accordingly, the BDCA will look to develop and maintain its own online social media presence through which it hopes to deliver content to its members and the public to develop and increase opportunities in cricket at all levels across the Bendigo region.

2. However, the BDCA's public reputation is valuable and so are the reputations of the BDCA's members, sponsors and stakeholders, so the BDCA prohibits any communication on social media that is defamatory, obscene, proprietary, and misrepresentative of the BDCA or for commercial purposes.

3. Social media is a broad and changing concept. It generally refers to interactive electronic forums or online media where people are communicating, posting participating, sharing, networking or bookmarking. For the purposes of this by-law, social media extends to:

   1. electronically communicated material, whether written, photographic, video, or audio, which is accessible by more than the member alone;

   2. Facebook, YouTube, twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Flickr and related domains;

   3. Blogs; social networking sites; instant messaging; social bookmarking, media sharing and collaborative editing websites;

   4. Any other forum which might reasonably be classified as social media as that term is generally understood; and

   5. Any other forum for public comment

Prohibitions

4. When using social media, a person must not:

A. Abuse others or expose others to content that is offensive, inappropriate or for an illegal purpose;
B. Impersonate or falsely represent any other person, including the BDCA or another member;
C. Abuse, harass or threaten any other person, including the BDCA or another member;
D. Make defamatory or libelous comments;
E. Use obscene, offensive, insulting, provocative or hateful language;
F. Post material that infringes the intellectual property rights of others;
G. Intrude upon the privacy of other members of the BDCA without the consent of such members;
H. Interfere with the conduct of any event run by the BDCA or with the role and responsibilities of The BDCA as the peak body for the sport of cricket in Victoria;
I. Violate security measures instituted at any facility of the BDCA;
J. Comment in a way that may be construed as harming the reputation of him or herself, another member, or the BDCA, including its sponsors and stakeholders; and related to the BDCA's social media platforms only:
K. Make excessive postings on a particular issue or post multiple versions of the same opinion or information on social media platforms operated by the BDCA;
L. Promote commercial interests in social media platforms operated by the BDCA; or
M. Without authority, post internet addresses, links to websites, email addresses or other personal information on social media platforms operated by the BDCA.

Consequences

5. The BDCA and its Members continually monitor online activity in relation to the social media of the BDCA and Members. The BDCA encourages Members to report detected breaches or suspected breaches of this Policy to the BDCA, and any use of Social Media which is likely to harm the BDCA's reputation.

6. In circumstances of a breach or suspected breach of this Code of Conduct, the BDCA may:

   1. make a necessary public comment such as a correction, clarification, contradiction or apology

   2. issue a formal warning;

   3. report any breach of any law to any local authority or wronged party;

   4. take any disciplinary action available to it under this Member Protection Policy; or

   5. exercise any of its available rights at law.

7. The BDCA expressly reserves the right to take any action, including dealing directly with Social Media providers, to remove any posted material that it considers to be in breach of this By-law.