Email Print Share

Social Media: Comment Policy, Disclaimer, Privacy, Copyright

NSF uses social media to enhance communication and engage with our stakeholders and with the public. Our use of social media is in keeping with the goals of open government (transparency, public participation and collaboration), and it is consistent with the agency's mission "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; [and] to secure the national defense."

NSF has agreements with a number of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn (see https://www.nsf.gov/social/ for a complete list of NSF social media activities), and we encourage you to visit these sites and share your thoughts.

Images and videos on NSF's social media sites, other than those credited to NSF, may be subject to copyright and should not be used without permission from the copyright holders.

The policies below have been developed to enhance opportunities for public engagement with NSF:

NSF COMMENT POLICY: TERMS OF PARTICIPATION

In order for everyone to feel welcome, we are committed to ensuring civil discussions and expect participants to treat each other with respect. NSF does not discriminate against any views, but we do monitor content and reserve the right to remove, without prior warning, any of the following:

  • Comments that contain abusive, vulgar, offensive, threatening or harassing language, personal attacks of any kind, unsupported accusations, defamatory language or offensive terms that target specific individuals or groups.
  • Comments that reveal personally identifiable information (PII). PII is a term used by the government to refer to information that can be tied to an individual's identity. Examples include your name, Social Security number, address and phone number. We are committed to protecting privacy.
  • Comments about declined research proposals and other proposal-related communications that are privileged, personal, proprietary or otherwise not for public disclosure.
  • Spam and comments that are clearly "off topic." Gratuitous links to websites that are not relevant to discussions are viewed as spam and will result in the comment being removed.
  • Advertising, solicitations, commercial endorsements, comments that promote services or products, and comments that involve political campaigning or lobbying.
  • Content that you do not have the right to post. We are committed to protecting intellectual property and will follow a notice and takedown procedure for complaints of copyright violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

NSF will not edit comments posted to our social media sites. If material provided by a user contains violations of these rules, we will remove the comment in its entirety.

We reserve the right to ban from NSF's social media platforms users who repeatedly violate our comment policy.

We recognize that social media provides opportunities for engagement at any time, literally 24/7, while NSF generally reviews comments during normal business hours. We may not be able to remove comments that violate our policies right away, but we will take action as soon as possible the next business day.

Comments published on NSF social media platforms are public. If you want to communicate with NSF in private or have a question you need NSF to answer, do not post to our social media sites. Instead, visit our website (www.nsf.gov) where you will find specific contact information. Communications made through social media posts will in no way constitute a legal or official notice or comment to the National Science Foundation.

Some Important Disclaimers

  • NSF does not guarantee that any information posted on its social media platforms is correct, and disclaims any liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance upon such information. NSF does not guarantee, and assumes no liability for, anything posted on our social media platforms by any person, employee or otherwise.
  • Comments posted on NSF's social media platforms are considered to be expressions of the posters' opinions rather than fact or NSF's views, and therefore they are NOT subject to NSF's Information Quality Guidelines.
  • Links to websites not maintained by NSF are provided on NSF's social media platforms solely for the information and convenience of users, and do not constitute either a warranty of the accuracy of the information on any other website or an endorsement of any other website, commercial venture, or product.
  • NSF is not directly associated with, and cannot assume liability for, any private enterprise or the acts or omissions of its employees except to the extent provided by the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1346(b)(1), 1402(b), 2401(b), 2671-2680.

Thank you for reading our comment policy. We encourage you to visit our social media platforms and join the conversations.

GENERAL DISCLAIMER

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented on our social media platforms are only those of the presenter grantee/researcher, author, or agency employee; and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. For official information about NSF, visit https://www.nsf.gov.

PRIVACY

The NSF Privacy Policy applies to the NSF website but not to our external social media platforms. They have their own privacy policies that visitors should be aware of. Links to the privacy policies of our social media platforms are as follows: