If you don’t want to get blocked on social media by the British royal family, don’t be a bully! According to reports, the social media team at Kensington Palace spends hours moderating negative comments across their various platforms. After years of ugly comments aimed towards the sovereign and her squad, the palace compiled a list of pretty reasonable rules. If you don’t cooperate? Find yourself on the block list.
HRH’s official website states, “These guidelines are in place to help create a safe environment on all social media channels run by The Royal Family, Clarence House and Kensington Palace.” That means if you follow the Queen @theroyalfamily, Prince Charles and Camilla’s @clarencehouse, William and Kate at @kensingtonroyal, even the @buckinghampalaceshop, you should be aware of official Royal social media etiquette.
Rule #1. “We ask that anyone engaging with our social media channels shows courtesy, kindness and respect for all other members of our social media communities.”
Rules #2 through… #18. When it comes to engaging with their accounts, comments must not contain spam, be defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory or promote sexually explicit material or violence. They ask users not to promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age.
The palace insists that users’ content not be off-topic, irrelevant or unintelligible. They also disagree with any advertising or promotion of services.
“We reserve the right to determine, at our discretion, whether contributions to our social media channels breach our guidelines. We reserve the right to hide or delete comments made on our channels, as well as block users who do not follow these guidelines.”
Taking it one step further, “We also reserve the right to send any comments we deem appropriate to law enforcement authorities for investigation as we feel necessary or is required by law.”
In short, if you can’t say something nice… don’t say anything at all.
Kinsey Schofield is the Editor-in-Chief of To Di For Daily and you can follow her on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.