Social Media Terms of Use

General

The County of Ventura and its departments and agencies (“County”) maintain social media sites to provide information about the County to the public. Access to and utilization of these sites are subject to these Terms of Use and any Terms of Use indicated by the operator of any social media site.

Not every County-affiliated social media site allows public comment. For those sites that allow public comment, the County will review comments after they have been posted. Due to the fact that social media pages are public and potentially visible to persons of all ages and diverse backgrounds, posts should be respectful, civil and considerate of visitors. Comments will be removed if they:

• Contain threats against any person or organization.
• Solicit, promote or advertise services or products.
• Contain abusive, profane or vulgar language.
• Contain language or information that may compromise or threaten the safety of any person or organization.
• Contain sexual content, graphic or obscene material, or material that would otherwise violate the law if published on this site.
• Contain offensive language relating to specific ethnic, religious, racial or other protected groups.
• Contain false or misleading information, including impersonation of any other individual.
• Discuss topics that have no relevance to the County or its business.

The County will not edit your comments to make them compliant with the Terms of Use. Therefore, please ensure that any comments comply with this policy if you would like them posted. Any delay in removing noncompliant comments or postings shall not be construed as approval of the comment or an exception to this policy.

Privacy

To protect your personal privacy and the privacy of other persons, please do not include personally identifiable or sensitive information in your posts, such as Social Security numbers, phone numbers or addresses.

Posting comments to a County social media site will grant the County and anyone reading the site permission to copy, distribute, make derivatives of, display, or otherwise utilize the comment.

The County does not archive information posted on social media sites, or otherwise retain or maintain historical postings.

No Endorsements

The comments posted on County social media sites do not necessarily reflect the views of the County or its elected officials and employees. Comments may not be reproduced for the purpose of stating or implying County endorsement or approval of any viewpoint, product, service, entity or organization. Any references on County social media sites to commercial entities, products, services, or other non-governmental organizations or individuals are provided solely for informational purposes, or are provided by the Web hosting service. Such references do not constitute an official endorsement of any product, person or service.

Release of Liability

By accessing a County social media site, you agree to release the County (including its agencies, officers, directors, employees and agents) from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with your use of this site, your posting of comments on this site or any dispute involving the posting of comments to or any other content on this site. In entering into this release you expressly waive any protections (whether statutory or otherwise) that would otherwise limit the coverage of this release to include only those claims which you may know or suspect to exist in your favor at the time of agreeing to this release.

Contact

Communications made through social media channels will not constitute legal or official notice to the County or any official or employee of the County for any purpose. You can find contact information for the County by visiting www.ventura.org.

Amendments

This policy may be updated or amended at any time.