Media Handbook for National Human Rights Institutions Dealing with criticism NHRIs are not immune from criticism. There will be occasions when people post a complaint or negative feedback. Being on social media is about engaging in a dialogue and the way you respond to criticism is a key factor in shaping your online presence. Your supporters and other followers will watch this closely. Be calm, constructive and professional in your response to criticism. Acknowledge the person’s opinion or complaint and provide a brief reply. Where appropriate, provide a link to relevant information on the NHRI website or that of a partner organization. In some cases, your supporters may also respond and answer the person’s criticism. Never engage in a slanging match. Not only is it unprofessional and damaging to the type of online community you are seeking to build, ugly online debates can spill out of the online space and be reported in the mainstream media. Responding positively and appropriately to criticism is one thing. However, NHRIs should make clear to everyone using their social media platform that “trolling” (when people post inflammatory or highly discriminatory comments to generate a response from others) and other offensive posts will not be tolerated. The NHRI should set out in its policy how it will respond in such cases. For example, individual posts on Facebook may be removed or comments for a particular YouTube video may be disabled. It is important that the NHRI clearly states to all users the sort of behaviour that is acceptable on its social media websites, such as in the example below from the Australian Human Rights Commission.29 The Australian Human Rights Commission engages in social media to promote discussion and debate on human rights issues. We welcome feedback and suggestions, and endeavour to respond to messages. We ask that the conversation on our pages is tolerant of other people’s views. Here are the basic guidelines for our social media pages: •• All discussions and material on our sites should be family friendly and respectful of a diversity of opinions. •• Posts and comments should not vilify or attack individuals on the basis of personal characteristics such as race or religion. •• Posts and comments should be relevant to the topic under discussion. •• Have your say, but do not spam our pages with repeats of the same information. •• Advertising is not allowed. •• Posts that contravene the above guidelines will be removed, and repeat offenders could be banned. •• If you follow us on Twitter, we will not automatically follow you back. This is to discourage the use of direct messaging and spam. •• The Commission encourages “friends” and “followers” on its pages, but this does not imply endorsement of any kind. 29 Australian Human Rights Commission; “Social Media Policy”; available at https://www.humanrights.gov.au/news/social-mediapolicy. Chapter 4: Using social media | 67