Social Media Community Guidelines
The Victorian Competition & Efficiency Commission ('the Commission') provides
opportunities through this website and various social media channels to listen to, inform
and engage with the community.
The Commission currently uses the following social media channels:
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Twitter
Facebook
VCEConnect (on the Commission's website).
These channels are actively monitored and updated by the Commission's stakeholder
engagement and communications team during normal business hours (9am-5pm)
between Monday and Friday.
We welcome your participation via our social media channels. However, to ensure they
are used constructively and for the good of the community, we ask that you follow the
guidelines below when contributing to any of our social media channels.
Be courteous
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Do not abuse, harass or threaten others.
Do not make defamatory or libelous comments.
Do not make personal comments towards or about any other contributor.
Be responsible
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Do protect your personal privacy and that of others by not including personal
information of either yourself or of others in your posts.
Do represent your own views and not impersonate or falsely represent any other
person.
Do not post material that infringes the intellectual property rights of others.
Be relevant
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Do post material to the forum that is relevant to the issues being discussed.
Do not promote commercial interests in your posts.
We reserve the right to:
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guide discussions based on Inquiry needs and to delete or remove from public
view any posts that are 'off-topic' or detract from discussions at hand.
delete or remove from view content that does not comply with these guidelines,
or that we judge, in our sole discretion, to be obscene, offensive, or rude.
block posts from people or other entities that violate these guidelines.
However, we do not edit posts.
We reserve the right to change these guidelines at any time.
If you have any questions, please contact us: contact@vcec.vic.gov.au
Twitter Policy
The Commission reserves the right to change the following policy at any time.
Definitions
Twitter is a 'microblogging' platform which allows users to post and exchange short
messages (up to 140 characters in length) and converse publicly with other users via a
mobile phone or web browser. Twitter allows users to share links to online information,
publish photographs and share other media such as video.
With the exception of direct messages exchanged between users, all messages (or
'tweets') are public and visible to all for review, comment and sharing.
VCEC Twitter accounts
The Victorian Competition & Efficiency Commission ('the Commission') uses Twitter for
the distribution of health information, alerts, news and event updates and general
enquiries.
In certain circumstances, (for example health emergencies), the Commission may also
use Twitter to engage directly with the public and its stakeholders.
The Commission currently operates the following Twitter accounts:
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@VCEC_victoria – for information of relevance to VCEC's activities
Twitter content
The Commission Twitter accounts are managed by the Commission Secretariat.
If you follow either of the Commission's Twitter accounts you can expect covering topics
including but not limited to:
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Posts about Commission news, publications, Commissioner speeches and
events (e.g. roundtables, cost benefit and regulatory impact statement training
courses, 'Regulatory Matters')
Posts likely to be of interest to followers of the Commission (e.g. on policy,
regulation, economics, government and reform)
Posts about new content on our other digital channels - for example videos on
YouTube, Facebook, VCEConnect
Invitations to provide feedback on specific issues on which we are consulting
Occasional live coverage of events.
The Commission also utilises other information channels and does not solely release
news and announcements via Twitter.
Availability
The Commission normally updates and monitors its Twitter accounts during office hours,
8:30am – 5:00pm Monday to Friday. Twitter may occasionally be unavailable and we
accept no responsibility for lack of service due to Twitter downtime.
Following
The Commission does not automatically follow organisations or individuals who follow it.
The Commission may follow relevant organisations including government agencies,
organisations in the policy and reform sector, regulatory review and inquiry stakeholders
and other parties where there is a clear link in communicating and receiving information.
The Commission will generally not follow individuals unless they are known in a
professional capacity and satisfy the business rule above.
Being followed by the Commission does not imply endorsement of any kind.
Unfollowing
As part of account maintenance and monitoring, the Commission regularly reviews
accounts it is following. This may result in unfollowing accounts.
Lists
In the interest of organising our followers into meaningful categories and providing
stakeholders and the public with useful industry and topic information, the Commission
may create publicly viewable lists of organisations following its twitter accounts.
Inclusion on lists does not imply endorsement of any kind.
Should an organisation not wish to be included on a list created by the Commission, it
may request to be removed from the list by sending a direct message to the relevant
Commission twitter account.
Privacy
The Commission does not capture or record the contact details of parties following its
Twitter accounts. Any information identified or deemed confidential or private is treated in
accordance with the Commission's privacy statement.
@Replies and Direct Messages
The Commission welcomes feedback and ideas from its followers.
The Commission Secretariat team reads all @replies and Direct Messages and ensures
that any emerging themes or helpful suggestions are forwarded to the relevant people in
the Commission.
Where the Commissioners are not able to reply individually to messages received via
Twitter and where common topics and requests exist, the Commission Secretariat may
issue a general notification to all parties.
The Commission does not provide advice outside the terms of its Order in Council and
does not engage on issues of party politics.
The usual ways of contacting the Commission for official correspondence are detailed in
the Contact Us section of the Commission website.
Hashtags (#)
It is a convention among Twitter users to distinguish content using semantic tags
(keywords), preceded by a # sign. This enables users to search and filter information
based on keywords and share information more meaningfully. Hashtags also allow users
to quickly identify 'trending' topics (as displayed on the Twitter.com homepage).
The Commission will use hashtags when:
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Providing or seeking information, or creating focal point for stakeholders to
engage, on specific matter of relevance to a public inquiry, reviews work or other
matters of interest to the Commission
Providing coverage of events (live-tweeting).
Link shortening
Unless they are already very short URLs, tweets will be shortened using link
compressing sites for example ow.ly.com; bitly.com; tinyurl.com; or Twitter’s built-in
shortening facility.
Re-tweeting
Reactive re-tweeting
The Commission may occasionally be asked to re-tweet content from other Twitter users.
It will consider these requests on a case by case basis but generally aim to honour such
requests — provided these are relevant to the Commission's functions — from:
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Other government Departments
Stakeholders, and
Non-profit organisations (NGOs).
In the interests of commercial propriety and competitiveness the Commission will
generally not re-tweet content from profit-making organisations.
Proactive re-tweeting
The Commission actively seeks opportunities to re-tweet content that contributes to the
dissemination and exchange of useful information about topics of relevance to the
Commission's work and likely to be of interest to its followers. Re-tweeting does not imply
endorsement by the Commission of the views expressed in the tweeted content.
Content includes but is not limited to:
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Research findings and statistics
News on public policy, regulatory reform, economics
Publicly available content relating to the Commission's present and past public
inquiries
Publicly available content relating to the Commission's present and past
regulatory reviews (e.g. regulatory impact statements)
Relevant conferences and networking events
Relevant celebrations/commemorations e.g. awards, themed days.