Social Media Policy

This is the official social media policy for staff and official accounts. Staff are urged to read and keep this policy in mind when preforming staff duties.

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Purpose of The Policy

The social media Policy exists to do the following:

1. Protect users and bystanders from bad actors
2. Maintain the image of the Backrooms, and the reputation of the Staff Team
3. Outline how official Backrooms accounts should act.
4. Define how users should act well on social media. Both when and when not representing the Backrooms.

While having a social media policy for an online horror community’s staff team might seem unnecessary to some, it is crucial for maintaining the community's safety, integrity, and reputation. The internet and social media as a whole is a chaotic and unpredictable space and this policy aims to detail what and what not to do well on it well representing the Backrooms.

When on social media, staff are encouraged to keep this one sentence in mind.

You represent the Backrooms, even on your personal accounts.

Fans of the Backrooms (especially younger fans) may be inclined to act differently around you if they learn you are staff or are an author (especially for authors of more popular pages like Levels 0-2). In short, do not abuse this power/ trust that comes with being a staff.

The Backrooms aims to uphold morality, trust and creative integrity and we ask that our staff, authors and users aim to upload these traits as well.

Section 1.0: How we Expect You to Act

In short, we expect people to conduct themselves respectfully, both in and out of Backrooms spaces. Don’t post risky¹, offensive or obscene images on your accounts, don’t encourage violence against minority groups, don’t act childish. Basically, how you act within the Backrooms community we expect you to act outside of it.

Section 1.1: “Adult” Interests

If you are interested in adult discussions/ posting adult artwork you are free to do so however these accounts should be set to private for the general safety of children on the internet and if these NSFW² accounts are connected/ linked³ to your PG-16 SFW account, we ask that that they are set to private

Likewise, these accounts are not permitted in official Backrooms spaces where children under the age of 18 are allowed (such as the official Discord Server, Roleplay Server or the Wikidot Wiki) and we ask that you use your PG-16 SFW account instead.

Section 1.2: Politics/ Religion vs Hate Speech

The Backrooms community is not a space for politics; however, we respect people’s rights to political freedom⁴ . That said, there is a difference between posting about politics and borderline hate speech. Posting hate speech in the name of politics is not allowed.

Section 1.2.1: Defining Hate Speech

We define hate speech as “abusive or threatening speech or writing that expresses prejudice on the basis of ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or similar grounds.” In short, be nice to everyone and treat people with respect and kindness regardless of anything that may seem “different” from you.

Section 1.3: Abuse of Power

Do not, under any circumstances, use your power as an author, staff or otherwise for personal gain. Remember people are easily influenced, especially younger fans and they may be willing to do things for you because they look up to you. They may also implicitly trust you. Do not abuse this.

Section 1.3.1: Using Power for Following

You are not allowed to use your position as Staff/ An Author to gain a following on other sites. Do not try to turn yourself into a cult of personality/ Form a cult around yourself.

Section 1.4 Private Matters vs Public Matters

Private staff matters like appeal votes, policy votes and the like are to remain in private staff spaces and are not to be posted to social media, even in private friend only spaces.

Section 2: How we Expect Official Accounts to Act

Backrooms official accounts represent the Backrooms, even more than an individual personal account. Because of this, we expect official accounts to act in a certain manner befitting the Backrooms.

Section 2.1: Interaction with Fans

Official accounts are encouraged to interact with fans, examples include:

• Reposting fanart
• Replying and Liking posts
• Answering questions
• With this said, do not reply to “rage bait”⁵ or comments that are made just to get a reaction. This only reflects badly on us. Additionally, keep posts and replies on topic and related to the Backrooms.

Section 2.1.1: Banned Content

The following content is banned from being posted on official accounts:

• “Reply to this and we’ll roast you”
• “Shit posts”
• NSFW/ Adult Content
• Anything related to on/off site drama
• Interacting with banned users.
• Ratio-ing” people

Section 2.2: Account Access

Only staff are permitted to access official accounts. If it is suspected that a non-staff person has access to an account, passwords are to be changed immediately. Staff are forbidden from sharing passwords with non-staff.

Section 2.2.1: Passwords⁶⁷

Staff are not allowed to deny other staff access to social media accounts, including but not limited to:

• Resetting the accounts password
• Logging other staff out⁸
• Enabling two-factor authorisation and not giving staff access to the secondary authorisation method
• In short, don’t let people in who aren’t supposed to have access and let people in who are supposed to have access.⁹

Section 2.3: Promotion

Staff are not allowed to use official accounts to promote their own personal accounts or projects.

Section 2.4: Sponsorships

Official accounts under no circumstances are to accept sponsorships from any company. No money is to be made from any and all official backrooms accounts.

Footnotes

1. Risky Content: Anything that may be seen as sexual or inappropriate for children, e.g nonsexual nudity

2. NSFW/ Not Safe for Work: Adult content that is explicitly sexual

3. Linked/ Connected: Accounts that are either linked or connected via a social media’s linking feature or a named account (i.e. Silver’s NSFW account)

4. Well, we take a hardline neutrality stance on politics. Human rights including LGBTQ+, Woman and POC rights are not political.

5. Rage-baiting (also rage-farming) is the manipulative tactic of eliciting outrage with the goal of increasing internet traffic, online engagement, revenue, support or just to get a reaction.

6. Passwords are changed monthly

7. Passwords are to be changed when a member of staff is demoted

8. Unless it’s to revoke access from an unauthorized user.

9. Passwords are to be stored in the staff server.