School Social Media
At St Joseph's School, we use school social media to communicate and engage with our school community. We promote the safe and responsible use of school social media as part of our legislative responsibility to provide a safe school environment. The principal (or their delegate) oversees our use of school social media to ensure it is appropriate and responsive to the needs of our school community.
We consider privacy requirements in our use of social media, including seeking consent to share student personal information publicly. School social media users should also comply with the 
principles of the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. See Privacy and Public Sharing of Personal Information.
The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 sets out communication principles, including that a digital communication should not disclose sensitive personal facts, be threatening, intimidating or menacing, indecent or obscene, or be used to harass an individual or make a false allegation. It can be an offence under the Act to post a digital communication with the intention that it cause harm to a victim.
Complaints about harmful digital communications can be made to Netsafe and Netsafe may investigate.
See Responding to Digital Incidents.
Anyone engaging with school-related social media is expected to uphold our school values, support our inclusive school culture, interact respectfully with other members of our school community, and consider how their actions online may impact others. Students and staff must comply with any digital technology use agreements. See School Community Conduct Expectations, Inclusive School Culture, and Digital Technology and Online Safety.
If anyone in our school community receives a media enquiry about the school through any school social media accounts, pass the enquiry to the designated media contact(s). See Media and Publicity.
School responsibilities
To support the safe and responsible use of school social media, we:
- promote an inclusive school culture that is safe, welcoming, and respectful
- create an environment where our community feels safe to raise concerns and complaints
- take all reasonable steps to eliminate bullying and harassment within our school, including online
- have policies and procedures for digital technology and online safety, including how to deal with media queries
- respond to incidents of digital harm
- seek external support as needed (e.g. Netsafe).
Our school only uses online tools, platforms, and applications after we have considered and approved their terms and conditions, including privacy settings, data collection, and content ownership agreements.
School-related social media accounts
School-related social media accounts must be set up with approval from the school. Administrators of social media accounts must be currently associated with the school. One or more staff members must have administrator rights.
Administrators are responsible for:
- monitoring social media posts/comments and responding to notifications, or assigning responsibility for these tasks
- managing harmful posts/comments, including by:
- removing untrue and offensive material, and reporting abuse
- blocking users if necessary
- documenting harmful content and actions taken, as appropriate
- reporting inappropriate content to relevant staff.
Social media administrators are considered online content hosts under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Administrators may be legally responsible for social media posts unless they follow the safe harbour process when dealing with any complaints about content. See Responding to Digital Incidents.
Online content hosts that allow other users to post any form of digital message (e.g. comments or videos), may be legally responsible for the content posted.
Sections 23–25 in the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 outline the safe harbour provision and complaints.
Schools that follow the safe harbour process are protected from legal responsibility and the possibility of prosecution for the content on their site.
The Ministry of Justice outlines seven specific steps that must be followed for safe harbour, and notes that you can only claim safe harbour if you follow these steps and make it easy for people to contact you with complaints about content posted by another person – it must be easy for people to find your contact details on your digital platform and easy for them to make a complaint that contains the information outlined in the Act.
Ministry of Justice: Safe harbour provisions 
Online content host means "the person who has control over the part of the electronic retrieval system, such as a website or an online application, on which the communication is posted and accessible by the user".
Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015 (s 4)
Related policies
Legislation
- Education and Training Act 2020
- Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015
- Health and Safety at Work Act 2015
- Privacy Act 2020
Resources
: Term 4 2024, Term 3 2024, Term 4 2022, Term 4 2020, Term 2 2020
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