Social Media Guidelines

Approved at PNC 04/18/21.

Preamble

We, the United States Pirate Party or USPP, are an anti-authoritarian party. We expect our social media representative to be sensitive to the wants and needs of others. As such, we believe it is important to understand the nuances of rules and party discipline. We want our social media pages to be a good reflection on us, because they ARE a reflection on us. We offer a loose leash for posting, but we don’t want to be in the position of censoring our own (collective) social media postings.

Set forth below are a set of guidelines presented to serve as guidance for anyone wishing to voluntarily help in the growth of the United States Pirate Party. Social media is tricky, so we wish to give you enough help so you can do it on your own. In other words, we’ll give everyone the length of rope required to hang themselves.

Goals

Social media should represent what the USPP represents, promoting platform friendly ideals and pirate friendly ideas. We would like all active social media accounts updated regularly. As we are presently all volunteers, if you think something needs updating, then volunteer to do it yourself. It is always better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. If you doubt yourself, follow the rule of three, consult with two other pirates.

Avoid:

• Use of obscenity or profanity in any “official” USPP account.
• Use of personal or ad hominem attacks (2) from any “official” USPP account.
• Use of USPP accounts for personal gain.
• Engaging with trolls.
• Use of logical fallacies (3).

Try to:

• Keep to the high road.
• Be witty, but not vindictive.
• Use logical arguments, backed by evidence.
• Promote the candidates, state parties and platform ideals.
• Make people want to support the USPP

We will develop guidelines for individual media types, but only in the case where general rules don’t seem to apply.

(2) Ad hominem attacks - Attacking a person's character or motivations rather than a position or argument (ex. “You’re only saying that because you’re racist”)

(3) Logical Fallacies - a clearly defined error in reasoning used to support or refute an argument, excluding simple unintended mistakes. (ex. Straw man arguments: “Senator Smith says that the nation should not add to the defense budget. Senator Jones retorts that he cannot believe that Senator Smith wants to leave the nation defenseless.”) or (False Dichotomy: If you believe/don’t believe that, you can’t be a real pirate.)

Platform Specific Guidelines

Our accounts represent us all:

• Never reply as an individual;
• Always keep comments professional;
• Failure to do so may result in revoking your posting permissions.

Facebook:

• No liking disparaging comments towards individuals or groups.
• No sharing hateful/inappropriate/non-pirate-applicable article/content.
• Try to interact with respectful/positive comments towards the USPP.
• Try to share platform-related content (pertaining to privacy, transparency, etc.)
• Always allow the comment section of posts to be unlocked and available to the public.
• Do not send messages in Facebook Messenger from the USPP Facebook (unless first prompted with a question)

Twitter:

• No liking disparaging tweets towards individuals or groups.
• No retweeting hateful/inappropriate/non-pirate-applicable article/content.
• Try to retweet/promote state parties, candidates and pirate-friendly policies.
• Do not block anyone on the official USPP account. We are pro-transparency.
• Do not DM anyone not involved with the USPP from the USPP Twitter account.
• [TWEETDECK ONLY] Attempt to schedule tweets for holidays, events, and/or special occasions.

Instagram:

• No liking disparaging comments towards individuals or groups.
• No posting/story-posting hateful/inappropriate/non-pirate-applicable article/content.
• Posts should include, but not be limited to: information on candidates, state parties, policies or events.
• Location should be included for photos of events.
• Do not ‪DM anyone not involved with the USPP from the USPP Twitter account.

YouTube:

• ❤️s left on comments should be restricted to complimentary comments toward the USPP, our policies and/or candidates.
• Uploading videos of events (when applicable).
• Do not reply to comments from the USPP YouTube account.
• Do not send personal messages from the USPP YouTube account.
• Promotion of any YouTube video/upload should be promoted on all social media related to USPP

Twitch:

• Any USPP affiliate using Twitch in promotion of the USPP should refrain from being disparaging in any way, shape or form.
• Ignore the insults, but stand firm. Corrections on comments/issues when applicable.
• Twitch Streams may be uploaded to YouTube when applicable/be request

Discord:

• Rules of the Discord serve, as laid out by the USPP, shall be followed. (https://wiki.uspirates.org/w/index.php?title=Discord_Rules)
• As a representative of the USPP, no harassment via direct message or comment
• Announcements tagging applicable groups (@everyone, @[state], @[region]) in regards to events or other happenings