Can I ask why Facebook comments are a no-no while comments made on newspaper forums were okay? Or were they not okay and I didn't realize? I'm new to this and don't know much about Facebook, so I am not grasping the distinction.
I hope it's okay to ask this.
I thought we just had to be clear in our posting that it was a rumor, so I don't know. In other cases it seemed like we were allowed to paraphrase FB postings.
There are a few issues here and I will do the best I can to review, but this is the long answer and a short answer will follow.
We can never copy and paste more than 10% of any comments from articles,FB/ any other social media, msm articles or any other written info from the web; UNLESS it expressly states that we may do so. But either which way the rule of thumb is 10% and a LINK to the source and this includes pictures. It is always up to each forum mod discretion if a particular site is allowed to be linked. They may choose to not link them for a wide variety of reasons.
With regards to rumors, at the beginning of this case, I mentioned that we do not typically allow rumors to be perpetuated, even though many turn out to be fact at some point. We allowed some speculation that included the rumors because very little information was coming out. But as in every forum, once rumors start to dominate the conversation and take over the discussion, then we back away as the information evolves.
But just to add another dimension to this situation,LE is being quite vocal about wanting this information to have remained confidential. While we cannot unring the bell, at a minimum we can comply from this point forward. WS always does what it can to accommodate LE and as I said we always comply with subpoenas.
On top of that, when another site chooses to speak poorly of our site, we understandbly frown upon linking to those sites. Sometimes we even block them if the site says a lot of hateful things about the work here. In this case I am not going to block the site because i think they are truly a wonderful group and are all feeling a lot of pain and it is coming out sideways a little bit. I encourage you all to support BGHN, but at this point it seems we should steer clear and not link to them for the time being.
Hopefully that can change as I truly believe we are all truly pulling in the same direction.
So, in a vacuum without all the other issues running around right now:
1.you can link to approved FB's (ie a the victim or the named suspect) but not any peripheral players or neighbors.
2.You cannot copy more than 10% from anywhere and you must provide a link.
3. Rumors will be handled on a case by case basis,but always at a minimum make sure it is clear that the information is only rumored and not fact.
if you ever cannot decide what to do or if you should post or not, please just imagine if people were posting info about YOU or your children because your neighbor did something wonky. Just put yourself in the position and I guarantee you will make the right choice every single time.
Thanks.
