Social Media Policies

This page outlines how the U.S. National Science Foundation uses social media to enhance opportunities for public engagement.

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NSF's use of social media

NSF uses social media to enhance communication and engage with the public. The agency's use of social media aligns with the goals of open government (transparency, public participation and collaboration) and is consistent with the agency's mission "to promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; [and] to secure the national defense."

NSF has agreements with social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, X and YouTube. We encourage you to visit NSF's channels on these sites and share your thoughts. 

Comment policy

Comments published on NSF social media platforms are public. If you want to communicate with NSF in private or have a question you need NSF to answer, do not post to our social media sites. Instead, visit our website for specific contact information. Communications made through social media posts will not constitute a legal or official notice or comment to NSF.

For everyone to feel welcome, we ensure that discussions are civil and respectful. NSF does not discriminate against any views, but we do monitor content and reserve the right to remove, without warning, any of the following:

  • Comments that contain abusive, vulgar, offensive, threatening or harassing language, personal attacks of any kind, unsupported accusations, defamatory language or offensive terms that target specific individuals or groups.
  • Comments that reveal personally identifiable information (PII). PII is a term used by the government to refer to information that can be tied to an individual's identity. Examples include your name, Social Security number, address and phone number. We are committed to protecting privacy.
  • Comments about declined research proposals and other proposal-related communications that are privileged, personal, proprietary or otherwise not for public disclosure.
  • Spam and comments that are clearly "off topic." We view gratuitous links to irrelevant websites as spam and will remove these comments.
  • Advertising, solicitations, commercial endorsements, comments that promote services or products and comments that involve political campaigning or lobbying.
  • Content that you do not have the right to post. We are committed to protecting intellectual property and will follow a notice and takedown procedure for complaints of copyright violation under the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

NSF will not edit comments posted to our social media sites. If material provided by a user contains violations of these rules, we will remove the comment entirely.

We reserve the right to ban from NSF's social media platforms users who repeatedly violate our comment policy.

We recognize that social media provides opportunities for engagement 24/7, while NSF generally reviews comments during normal business hours. We may not be able to remove comments that violate our policies right away, but we will act as soon as possible the next business day.

Some important disclaimers:

  • NSF does not guarantee that any information posted on its social media platforms is correct and disclaims all liability for any loss or damage resulting from reliance upon such information. NSF does not guarantee, and assumes no liability for, anything posted on our social media platforms by any person, employee or otherwise.
  • NSF considers comments posted on its social media platforms to be expressions of the posters' opinions rather than fact or NSF's views. Therefore, they are not subject to NSF's "Information Quality Guidelines".
  • Links to websites not maintained by NSF are provided on the agency's social media platforms solely for the information and convenience of users. They do not guarantee the accuracy of information on any other website, and they are not an endorsement of any other website, commercial venture or product.
  • NSF is not directly associated with, and cannot assume liability for, any private enterprise or the acts or omissions of its employees except to the extent provided by the "Federal Tort Claims Act," 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b)(1), 1402(b), 2401(b), 2671-2680. 

Copyright

Images and videos on NSF's social media sites, other than those credited to NSF, may be subject to copyright. Please do not use these without permission from the copyright holders. 

Privacy

The NSF Web Privacy Policy applies to the NSF website but not to our external social media platforms. They have their own privacy policies that visitors should be aware of. Links to the privacy policies of our social media platforms are as follows: 

General disclaimer

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations presented on a grantee, researcher, author or agency employee's social media platform do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF. For official information about NSF, visit nsf.gov. 

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