Indiana DNR commenting guidelines for social media
The following applies to social media services that DNR uses to communicate with the public.
Welcome to an official social media account sponsored by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
Indiana DNR-sponsored social media profiles and pages are a family-friendly outlet to promote our agency’s activities, events, and programs. What they are not:
- A method for reporting suspected criminal activity. If you suspect a crime, call the Turn In a Poacher/Polluter hotline at 1-800-TIP-IDNR (800-847-4367) or file a complaint online. Reporting a crime via social media can create liability for the author or a post and could put your personal safety at risk.
- A method for submitting comments on pending regulation changes. For commenting procedures, see the Natural Resources Commission’s Division of Hearings website.
- A forum for harassment or personal threats. If you engage in threatening behavior, your comments will be submitted to law enforcement.
We encourage you to ask questions and share comments on any other DNR topic. Our social media team monitors DNR-sponsored social media profiles and pages but is not responsible for content generated by users. We accept the majority of comments but are not obligated to respond to comments.
We will hide or remove comments that include the following:
- Obscene, profane, rude or vulgar language or images
- Personal attacks or offensive terms that target specific individuals or groups
- Threats or defamatory statements
- Violent, hateful or racist language
- Advocacy for any illegal activity
- Off-topic posts, repetitive posts, spam
- Outdated, inaccurate or misleading information
- Promotion or opposition to political organizations, campaigns, candidates, or pending legislative action
- Personal information, including but not limited to addresses and telephone numbers
- Web links to any site other than the DNR website
- Advertisements or solicitations of any kind
- Infringement on copyrights or trademarks
We do not discriminate against any views but reserve the right to remove or hide posts that violate the above policies or that are deemed inappropriate. Repeated and/or serious violations of these rules from automated accounts or “bots” may cause the author to be blocked from Indiana DNR social media accounts. Violations may also result in an abuse report being filed with the social media service.
The DNR social media team reserves the right to close comments at any time on any or all of its social media sites.
Please contact dnrwebmaster@dnr.IN.gov with questions.
Updated 1/2023
