When we have guests in the office, we do not let them offend each other without us intervening, telling them off, or showing that we are against the offense in another way. In the same way, we don’t want our social media channels to be used by our followers to offend each other—or to spread opinions or values that are against our core values.

Our responsibility

As the owners of a Facebook page or Instagram account, we have the legal responsibility to remove comments that might break Swedish law, according to the Bulletin Board Systems Act (also known as the BBS law).

Clearly written comment policy

At Make Equal, our comment policy is used when we are moderating comments in our social media, and we are also prepared to have an extra eye on our comment sections when we have shared something that we suspect will generate a large discussion — in order to prevent comments that break our rules from staying visible for too long. The comment policy is public and clearly presents which comments we remove from our channels — and which people we block. 

When a discussion starts

If a discussion in our comments is on the borderline of what we allow — if it isn’t a direct violation but rather, people who are suggesting or asking things that can be understood as offensive, for example — we normally wait and see what happens in the discussion as it progresses. 

Does the discussion contribute to popular education and stay on a factual level, or does it risk going out of control? Is anyone countering questionable statements, or have we responded in a good way? Sometimes these questions are difficult to answer — but the most important thing we can do is take responsibility for and be aware that our comment sections affect our followers! Do we want people to stop commenting because they think the tone is too harsh? That people who just want to troll and derail discussions can have control? No. Of course we want an open and welcoming conversation in our comments — but never at the expensive of other people’s freedom of expression.

Inclusive cyber rooms

Minority groups and others who already meet violations and vulnerability in their daily lives should be able to feel safe in our comment sections. We know that certain groups are extra vulnerable and subjected to cyber hate, and we are working toward changing this on a societal level — to do that, we have to start with ourselves and our own channels.

Kristina Wicksell, communicator Make Equal