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Social Media Use Policy

Fire Stations

Every person in use of this East Pierce Fire and Rescue social-media site may freely speak, write and publish on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right, and being subject to the use restrictions below. East Pierce Fire and Rescue persistently monitors its social-media sites for compliance with this policy and for purposes of records retention. All posts and comments on this site are subject to public disclosure pursuant to RCW 42.56.070. By using this site, the user agrees to comply with all policies of East Pierce Fire and Rescue with respect to social media use.

Inappropriate and prohibited content is subject to immediate removal or blockage from any East Pierce Fire and Rescue social media sites. East Pierce Fire and Rescue may hide, block or delete:

  • Comments expressly advocating direct violence or other illegal activity;
  • Comments containing or linking to obscenity, which is defined as sexually explicit and/or pornographic content that is patently offensive, appeals to prurient interest, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value;
  • Comments that are harassing, aggressive, purposefully incomplete, or overtly misleading;
  • Comments containing links to malware and/or malicious content that affects the normal functioning of a computer system, server, or browser;
  • Duplicate comments posted repeatedly within a short period;
  • Comments containing actual defamation against a specifically named person or organization, either as determined by a court or when the comments are patently defamatory by reference to easily discovered facts;
  • Comments that contain images or other content that violate the intellectual property or copyright rights of someone else, if the owner of that property notifies us that the property was posted in a comment on our social media account;
  • Comments that contain a hyperlink to any website other than those controlled by East Pierce Fire and Rescue. This will be done without regard to the viewpoint of the comment containing such a link or the content of the site to which the link redirect;
  • Comments promoting or advertising commercial services, entities or products;
  • Comments that support or oppose political candidates or ballot propositions—see RCW 42.17.A.555;
  • Comments which are truly threatening or contain aggressive language or speech, or express maliciously false language or speech;
  • Comments that promote, foster or perpetuate discrimination on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, age, religion, gender, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, physical or mental disability, gender identity or sexual orientation or other recognized protected class;
  • Information that compromises the safety or security of the public or public systems, i.e. spam or external links;
  • Commercial Speech;
  • Comments which attribute personal statements, opinions or beliefs to East Pierce Fire and Rescue;
  • Comments violating the rights of any person or organization protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property, or similar laws or regulations;
  • Comments violating the privacy rights of a specific person or persons; or
  • Comments containing information that is not germane to the applicable post at issue.

Please see the attached link to our full social media policy, Speech, Expression, and Social Networking HERE.