The Fairview Heights Public Library (Library) maintains various social media applications and services to engage with the community it serves and to facilitate an online platform of communication between library staff and library patrons about library-related issues. The Library’s social media applications and services are not intended to be traditional public forums for the general exchange of ideas and viewpoints, but a limited public forum for discussing Library programs, events, and materials.
By posting any comments, posts or other materials on the Library’s social media pages, patrons give the Library permission to reproduce, distribute, publish, display, edit, modify, delete and otherwise use your submissions for any library-related purpose in any form on any media.
The Library recognizes and respects differences in opinion. Posted comments are the opinion of the author only and publication of a comment does not imply endorsement or agreement by the Library. All comments, posts, and messages are subject to review and the Library reserves the right to remove any comment, post or message that it deems, in its sole discretion, to be:
• Obscene, sexual, or pornographic content and/or language
• Content that promotes discrimination on the basis of race, age, religion, gender, or other protected class
• Specific and imminent threats to any person
• Personal attacks, insults, or threatening language
• Potentially libelous statements
• Conduct that violates any federal, state, or local law or encourages illegal activity
• Private and personal information published without consent
• Comments unrelated to the content of the discussion
• Commercial promotion, spam, or links to malware/viruses
• Organized political activity (or content that advocates or promotes a candidate, referendum or campaign)
• Violations of copyright, trademark right or other intellectual property right of any third party
By using the Library’s social media application and services, patrons agree to abide by this policy and all other rules and policies of the Library. Abuse or violations of this policy may result in the responsible poster being barred from posting any subsequent messages to the Library’s social media sites without prior notice. All comments posted to any Library social media application and service are bound by the social media platform’s terms of use and the Library reserves the right to report any violation of the platform’s terms of use to the platform.
The Library, its Board of Trustees, employees, agents, and officials assume no responsibility for any damages, direct or indirect, arising from participation in Library-sponsored social media. Patrons are personally responsible for their commentary. Patrons should be aware that they may be held personally liable for commentary that is defamatory, obscene, proprietary, or libelous by any offended party. In addition, patrons agree to indemnify the Library and its Board of Trustees and employees from and against all liabilities, judgments, damages and costs (including attorney’s fees) incurred by any of them which arise out of or are related to posted content.
Users who enter private or personal information on Library social media sites do so at their own risk, and the library is not responsible for any damages resulting from the public display of, or failure to remove, private or personal information. Content posted on the library’s social media applications and services may be subject to disclosure under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.
This policy and terms used may be amended without further notice.
Adopted: 4/18/2024
