Social Media Guidelines

UC Irvine’s social media guidelines apply to members of the UC Irvine social media community, including, but not limited to, students, faculty, staff, administrators and members of the greater community. These guidelines are meant to provide guidance and support to UCI departments and organizations that own and operate social media channels. Social media is a dynamic medium. As new norms emerge, these guidelines will be updated accordingly.

Like any other university activity, it is important that you exercise sound judgment and common sense by adhering to UCI’s values, and by following UCI Rights of Free Speech and Academic Freedom, UC diversity statement, UC statement of ethical values and standards of ethical conduct and all other applicable policies.

Be professional

As a representative of UCI, it is your responsibility to protect UCI’s institutional voice. How you conduct yourself not only reflects you – it is also a direct reflection of UCI. While social media is lighter in tone, please keep your messaging professional with proper spelling and grammar.

Be respectful

Be respectful of the diversity of our community. You may receive positive, neutral and negative comments. As an administrator, you can and should respond when relevant, but consider how the response may reflect on your department/organization and UCI.

Respect intellectual property laws

It is critical that you adhere to laws governing copyright and fair use of copyrighted material owned by others, including UC Irvine’s own copyrights, trademarks and brands. Personal Web pages and social media accounts (of faculty, staff or students) may not use UC Irvine logos, seals or other campus trademarks. Always credit content (photos, images, videos, music, text, etc.) that you did not create. Prior to reposting, ask permission to post photos/videos.

Respect confidentiality

For safety and security reasons, please refrain from posting personal contact information (home and cell phone numbers, mailing or home addresses, personal email addresses, etc.) on social media sites. Remember that everything you post on social media is public and can live on forever.

No endorsements

We encourage you to use social media to share information about your work at UC Irvine. However, any advertising, solicitation or overtly favorable acknowledgements or endorsements of third-party products and services is not permitted, except with express written permission of the university, in compliance with university policy.

Be aware of the Social Media Privacy Act

The Social Media Privacy Act, passed by the California Legislature in September 2012, prohibits public and private college employees and representatives from requiring or requesting a student, prospective student or student group to disclose, access or divulge personal social media account information.

All content, information and views expressed on social media belong to the individual posting the content and do not necessarily reflect UC Irvine’s official policies or positions. The university is not responsible for unanswered posts or inaccurate information posted by others.

For questions, comments or to report abuse, send a message to ucisocialmedia@uci.edu

*Social media includes, but is not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Flickr, Yelp, blogs and more.