Citizen Social Media Code of Conduct

Code of Conduct

We want our social media accounts to be active places for participation and discussion. This means that we must balance openness and freedom of information with respect and fairness. This will serve as our code of conduct for citizen interaction online and on social media. We respect the rights of our users to share their opinions and express their viewpoints. However, we reserve the right to block users or remove user-generated content when the content contains:

  • Obscene, indecent, or profane language
  • Threats, harassment, or defamatory statements
  • Hate speech and / or personal attacks directed at race, color, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, age, religion, or disability
  • Promotions or endorsements of services or products
  • Comments promoting illegal activity or posting of any material that violates copyrights or trademarks of others
  • Comments advocating for or against any person campaigning for election to a political office
  • Comments about an agency other than Montgomery County or comments about a topic unrelated to Montgomery County
  • Spam or posts that include links to other sites
  • Posts that contain confidential or non-public information

If a user's post or comment violates our code of conduct, we will remove the post and provide notice to the user about why the post was removed. We will also inform the user that a second violation will result in being banned and blocked from the page.

Users are subject to the Terms of Service (TOS) of the host site. Information (photos, videos, etc.) users share with or post to Montgomery County pages is also subject to the TOS of the host site and may be used by the owners of the host site for their own purposes. For additional details, consult the host website's TOS.

In 2021, Facebook began allowing users the capability of disabling others to comment on their individual posts and comments. While Montgomery County, Ohio does not disable the ability to comment on its posts, however, it cannot prevent individual users from disabling comments on their own posts and comments.

Hours of Operation

We encourage citizens to post or interact on our social media channels at any time of the day. However, our accounts are only actively managed during normal business hours (Monday through Friday, 8 am-5 pm).

Accounts are also not actively managed during Federal Holidays. While we will sometimes monitor and respond to comments outside normal business hours, we cannot guarantee that we will respond immediately if someone leaves a comment outside normal business hours. If citizens have a general question about the County, we encourage them to contact 937-225-4690. For specific inquiries by department, contact the following:

Environmental Services

  • If citizens have a water or sewer emergency, we encourage them to contact our 24-hour dispatch line at 937-781-2678.
  • If citizens have specific questions regarding water / sewer accounts or bills, we encourage them to contact customer service at 937-781-2688.
  • If citizens have specific questions regarding solid waste (trash) or recycling, we encourage them to contact 937-225-4999.
  • If citizens have a general question about Job and Family Services, we encourage them to contact 937-496-6720.
  • If citizens have a general question about the Animal Resource Center, we encourage them to contact 937-898-4457.

Job & Family Services

If citizens have a general question about Job and Family Services, we encourage them to contact 937-496-6720.

Animal Resource Center

If citizens have a general question about the Animal Resource Center, we encourage them to contact 937-898-4457

Public Records & Fair Use Policy

We are a public entity, so we are required by state law to archive and furnish public records to our constituents. Therefore, any comment or post to our social media sites is considered a public record, regardless of the privacy settings of individual social media accounts. For this reason, we ask that you do not provide personal contact information, account information, or billing information on our social media sites.

In addition, when you post or interact on our social media accounts, you grant Montgomery County and other entities irrevocable permission to copy, distribute, make derivatives, display, or perform the commenter's work publicly and free of charge.

Content deemed inappropriate (see above) shall be promptly documented, saved, and then removed. Any third-party-generated content that is removed based on conduct violations is archived using ArchiveSocial. All third-party-generated content must be maintained for the appropriate length of time based on records retention schedules, regardless of whether it was removed or not.

All social media content must be fully accessible to any person requesting documents from the County's social media sites.

Privacy Policy

In compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other current and future privacy directives, we will notify you (via a public post to our website or social media accounts or a private message or email (if applicable)) when your data is being collected and you will have the option to deny collection of such data.