Introduction
GT Motors operates various social media communities on various social media services and encourages members to publish content and interact with GT Motors and other community members through the social media communities. Social Media can become a negative experience if one or more community members spoil it for others – so there are ground rules to ensure a positive experience for everyone. Please keep the rules in mind whenever you publish content to or interact in our Social Media communities.
Purpose
The purpose of these rules are to ensure that engaging with GT Motors and other community members on Social Media communities is a positive experience for community members.
Members are encouraged to engage with GT Motors and other community members. Conversations through our social media communities need to stay respectful, do not cause harm, are appropriate, don’t break any laws, and are consistent with our policies. It is for this purpose that there are social media community rules. The purpose of these rules is to ensure that community members have a friendly and rewarding experience interacting with each other through the social media communities.
Communities
These rules apply to members of our social media communities – like Facebook pages or groups, Twitter interactions using @mentions and hashtags commonly associated with GT Motors, or Instagram posts using hashtags commonly associated with GT Motors, among others.
These rules apply to conduct on any of our communities on any social media service. Social media is a broad term that covers any existing or future digital tool or other kind of technology that allows one person to publish the same message to many people in a public or semi-public forum at the same time using the Internet or a similar communications network. It includes -
- social networking services – like Facebook;
- micro-blogging services – like Twitter or Tumblr;
- professional networking services – like Linkedin;
- video and photo sharing services – like YouTube, Vimeo, Instagram, or Flickr;
- blogs – like corporate or personal blogs; or
- forums and discussion boards – like Reddit;
- wiki websites - like Wikipedia;
- instant messaging applications - like Whatsapp, WeChat, and iMessage when used to send group messages; and
- other electronic communications - like email or SMS when used to send the same message to multiple recipients.
Relevance
GT Motors social media communities exist for certain purposes and users should not publish anything that is irrelevant. Anything outside of those purposes is irrelevant.
Engen’s social media communities are spaces for members to discuss topics relevant to Engen’s business, goods and services, and to connect members to the official website. Only publish content that is relevant. Anything contrary to the community purpose will be irrelevant, including:
- links to external websites not related to or our goods and services;
- adverts for goods or services other than GT Motors – like member’s goods or services or those of a competitor;
- promotional competitions other than GT Motors – like member’s promotional competitions or those of a competitor;
- spam or anything else published more than once or in more than one place;
- donation requests unless GT Motors has authorised you to publish them in writing;
- acknowledgement requests – like asking for ‘votes’, ‘likes’, or ‘retweets’;
- your personal contact information because it puts member’s privacy at risk – like email address or phone number; or
- anything else that isn’t relevant.
Social Media Rules
- Members must comply with the written terms of service and unwritten rules of etiquette for each social media service.
It is important to understand the rules of each social media service. This includes the written rules like terms of service and the unwritten rules like the manners and etiquette of that social media service that its members generally subscribe to. - Content that members publish on GT Motors social media communities are not GT Motors views.
Content that community members publish on GT Motors/Engen’s social media communities do not necessarily reflect GT Motors/Engen’s views. Views that community members express are theirs alone and not those of GT Motors/Engen. - GT Motors will do its best to respond to content members publish on social media communities timeously.
GT Motors will do its best to reply to content that is published to social media communities or sent directly through social media within a reasonable time, but there may be times when it takes longer to reply to members. GT Motors will generally reply to anything published after hours, on the weekend, or on a public holiday on the next available working day. However, GT Motors is not liable for responding within a timeline that you may consider as being an unreasonable time, or failing to respond to members at all. - GT Motors does not endorse anything members publish to the social media communities merely by acknowledging it in any way.
GT Motors appreciates it when members post content to its social media communities and may acknowledge it with a ‘like’, ‘retweet’, ‘favourite’, or other way of acknowledging it depending on the particular social media service it is published on. But the mere fact GT Motors acknowledges something that members publish does not mean that it is endorsed in any way. Engen will only endorse something if it is explicitly said in writing. - Members may speak freely on GT Motors social media communities, provided that it is not abuse – which includes any discrimination, hate speech, violence, or trolling.
GT Motors believes in freedom of speech and encourage members to conduct themselves as they wish (within reason) on our social media communities, provided that it doesn’t amount to abuse. Members are allowed to respectfully disagree with other members, but are not allowed to attack them personally. Members may not engage in any of the following prohibited conduct:- discrimination that treats someone in a certain way based on prejudice – like racism, homophobia, bigotry, or other kinds of prejudice;
- hate speech that attacks someone based on their attributes – like their gender, ethnicity, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation;
- violence that actually harms someone or merely threatens to harm them – like harassment, bullying, or intimidation; or
- trolling that harasses someone online by intentionally sowing discord, starting arguments, or publishing objectionable content.
- Members may publish anything to our social media communities except for content that is illegal, harmful, offensive, or impermissible.
GT Motors looks forward to having content on our social media communities and wants members to feel empowered to publish anything within reason. Members may not publish any prohibited content including -- illegal content that is prohibited by law – like child pornography, pirated content, or content that otherwise infringes someone else’s copyright or other rights;
- harmful content that could cause harm to someone – like defamatory comments, fraudulent claims, or untrue statements;
- offensive content that could reasonably offend someone – like pornography, obscenities, or anything intended to shock someone; or
- impermissible content – contrary to any codes or standards that we subscribe to and make you aware of.
- GT Motors may be restricted from engaging with you about our promotional competitions on our social media communities by the rules of that competition.
GT Motors runs promotional competitions through social media from time to time. We understand that you may want to engage with us about these competitions, but please understand if we do not reply to you or remove what you publish. There are certain aspects of promotional competitions that we are not allowed to talk to you about in terms of our promotional competition rules. Please refer to the rules of the relevant promotional competition for additional information, but any decisions by judges relating to a promotional competition are generally final. - Please report any legitimate breaches of these rules by other community members to us.
Unfortunately, community members may not abide by these rules and they may have to be reported. Members should not feel bad about reporting fellow community members if there is a legitimate reason to think that they have breached these rules, particularly if they have done something to negatively affect members. However, members should not report anyone lightly. Any use of the reporting facility to censor discussion may itself be regarded as a breach of these rules. - GT Motors may edit or remove anything that is published to our social media communities that are inconsistent with these rules.
Each social media community has features that allow us to edit or completely remove published content under certain circumstances. GT Motors values member contributions to our communities and will never use these features to edit or remove content that is published, unnecessarily. But, as the moderator of our social media communities, GT Motors is responsible for overseeing their content. GT Motors has complete discretion to edit or remove anything members publish on the applicable social media communities that is inconsistent with these rules without notice to members. GT Motors may also impose filters on its social media communities that prevent community members from posting content with certain keywords in the first place, depending on the features of the relevant social media service. - Members may ask us why GT Motors has moderated their content and to reinstate it, but GT Motors is not obliged to do either.
If GT Motors has removed anything that members have published, members may ask us for reasons why it was removed. GT Motors will do its best to inform members of the reason for removal, but is not required to do so. GT Motors also need not tell any other community members why it was decided to remove the content. Unfortunately, there may be times when GT Motors cannot give detailed legal reasons for why it has decided to remove anything members publish. GT Motors will only reinstate the removed content if in GT Motors opinion there is a compelling reason to do so. - GT Motors may take recourse against members for breaching these rules by suspending or banning members from any of our social media communities.
GT Motors is proud of the fact that members of our social media communities are people of integrity. As people of integrity, GT Motors trusts you to abide by these rules. However, there may come a time when a community member breaches these rules in a way that calls for action from GT Motors. GT motors has absolute discretion to take action if it is deemed that the member has breached these rules and may take recourse against the member in the form of a suspension or a ban or any other right that we may have in law. GT Motors may suspend the right to participate in any of our social media communities if members do not comply with these rules, which means that members will not be able to access it for a period of time. GT Motors may also ban members from any of its social media communities outright under an extreme circumstance, which means that members will not be able to access it for the foreseeable future. GT Motors may also ban or suspend any other social media accounts that it suspects the member to be operating through, after it has taken recourse against your initial account. - Members may appeal to GT Motors to be reinstated if banned or suspended.
If GT Motors has suspended or banned members, they may appeal to reinstate their access to a social media community. If GT Motors decides to ban the member then it will provide members with steps to follow should they be reinstated. - GT Motors is not responsible for any content on third-party websites linked to or from our social media communities.
Links on our social media communities may lead you to third-party websites. Third-parties other than GT Motors control these websites. GT Motors is not responsible for the content on those sites. - Other Terms
Members are bound by our other terms that apply to their use of our social media communities that may also apply to members use of our social media communities, including our:- GT Motors website terms – and
- GT Motors privacy policy – https://www.gtonline.co.za/privacy-policy.html