Oakton College Social Media Comment Moderation Guidelines

Oakton College uses social media to build relationships among members of the College community, foster conversation about featured College activities and share important information. As a public institution, we are committed to transparency, inclusion, and free expression under the First Amendment. Most comments—even ones that share negative opinions of the College—should not be deleted.

However, we have a responsibility to maintain a respectful, safe environment on our platforms, and the College’s platforms are not intended to provide an open public forum for any expression that may be allowed in other contexts. Rather, these platforms are intended to serve the purposes described above. The following criteria guides when we may delete or turn off comments:

1. Deleting Comments

Comments may be deleted if they clearly violate the platform’s community standards (see the policies for Meta, LinkedIn and YouTube) or the guidelines below. In alignment with platform guidelines and the limited purposes of College social media platforms, the College will delete the following types of comments:

  • Comments that are obviously irrelevant to the original post, e.g., comments with no relationship to the individual, group, program, initiative, or event, or other subject that the post features.
  • Obscene, profane, discriminatory, threatening, or harassing content.
  • Commercial advertising, solicitation, or self-promotion.
  • Promotion of illegal activity.
  • Political endorsements in violation of College ethics rules.
  • Copyright/trademark infringement.
  • Spam (Comments by bots).
  • Repetitive comments by the same user (provided that the first comment will not be removed for this reason).

2. Turning Off Comments

Across most platforms, we have the option to disable comments at the time of publication. Oakton may disable comments entirely on a post at the time of publication when posts involve sensitive topics.

In addition, Oakton will disable comments on existing posts when comment volume becomes unmanageable (e.g. more than 75 comments on one platform within a 60-minute timeframe).

When comments are disabled, community members will still be able to submit direct messages to the College.

For questions or concerns about these guidelines, contact Marketing and Communications at marketing@oakton.edu.