Purpose

San Mateo County Health’s social media properties were created as a means to share information and ideas related to preventing health issues before they occur, protecting the public’s health, and fostering partnerships to build healthy communities. San Mateo County Health reserves the right to change or eliminate the use of social media sites/services at any time, as deemed appropriate.

Limitations on Use

It is the intent of San Mateo County Health to create a limited public forum with its use of social media properties. The purpose of County Health’s use of social media sites/services is to serve as a channel for communication between the public and San Mateo County Health for the purposes listed above.

County Health may remove inappropriate comments, such as those which have obscene language or sexual content, involve ad hominem personal attacks on another user, threaten or defame any person or organization, violate the legal ownership interest of another party, promote illegal activity, promote or solicit commercial services or products, or that are not topically related to the purpose of County Health’s social media properties, as described above. San Mateo County Health will remove any comments that disclose or discuss confidential employee, patient, or client information, including but not limited to Protected Health Information.

These restrictions are reasonably necessary to encourage public participation and foster discussion of the issues for which the forum was created by permitting the sharing of a broad range of viewpoints on these issues. San Mateo County Health will routinely monitor the comments posted by users of this site, and comments that violate these Terms of Use will be removed. To the extent that users believe the comments of another user violate these Terms of Use, they may notify County Health by email. Repeated violations of the San Mateo County Health comment policy may cause the author to be blocked from the social media properties.

San Mateo County Health will make a determination about the appropriateness of comments based on its application of these Terms of Use, and that determination is final and not subject to outside review. San Mateo County Health will apply these Terms of Use in a viewpoint neutral manner that is consistent over time. Any terms of service that the sites (i.e. Facebook and Twitter) place on user participation apply to comments made by any user, and these sites may enforce its own terms of service.

To the extent that any user believes comments of another user are in violation of the terms of services of these sites, that person should contact these sites rather than contacting San Mateo County Health as County Health has no obligation to enforce the terms of services of these sites/services. To the extent that any user believes the comments of another user are not in line with these purposes and restrictions, they are welcome to notify San Mateo County Health by e-mailing smchealthcomms@smchealth.org

Terms of Use and Privacy

Use of the social media properties is subject to the terms of use of the sites/services, including the privacy policies of the site/service. Facebook’s guidelines can be found at http://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php. Twitter’s Privacy Policy can be found at https://twitter.com/privacy and Twitter guidelines at https://support.twitter.com/groups/33-report-abuse-or-policy-violations. Anyone posting comments or submitting information to San Mateo County Health on these sites/services should keep this in mind.

In addition, those who post comments (posters) or information to these sites/services agree that their comments may be treated by the County of San Mateo as public records subject to disclosure pursuant to the California Public Records Act, Cal. Gov’t Code Section 6250 et seq. Posters are urged to protect their privacy and should consider refraining from posting personally identifying information, including but not limited to: last name, address, age, and phone number. To the extent these sites/services are open to the public, the public has access to its content and can access that content without the assistance of County Health or the County of San Mateo.

Responsibility for Content

Except for information disseminated by the owner/manager of the social media properties, any information posted or submitted by others expresses the views of the person submitting such information and not necessarily the views of the County of San Mateo or San Mateo County Health, and neither the County of San Mateo nor County Health is responsible for the opinions and information shared by others.

Disclaimer of Notice

Communications made through these sites/services shall in no way be deemed to constitute legal notice to the County of San Mateo or any of its agencies, officers, employees, agents, or representatives with respect to any existing or potential claim or cause of action against the County of San Mateo or any of its agencies, officers, employees, agents, or representatives where notice to the County of San Mateo is required by any federal, state or local law, rule or regulation.

Advertising

Users of these sites/services should understand that contextual advertising as appears on these sites/services is byproduct of use of these sites/services. San Mateo County Health does not control the sites/services’ placement or use of such advertising, and in no way does the use by County Health of these sites or services constitute any endorsement or support of any such advertisements. Reference in such advertisements or in any user-generated content herein to any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the County of San Mateo and shall not be used for advertising or product endorsement purposes.

Contact Person: You may contact San Mateo County Health via email at info@smchealth.org.  In addition, you can contact County Health Communications by telephone at (650) 573-3473.