Equinet - European network of equality bodies

About #MeetNEBs

Every week, one of our member equality bodies gets to tweet through the Twitter account @equineteurope, which aims to present the work of Equinet and its members through a mix of experiences and opinions from across Europe. Through the stories of the various curators, you will discover more about the day-to-day work of equality bodies and how they tackle discrimination in their country.

Why are our members taking over our Twitter account?

The idea is that the curators will share both their own (and their equality body’s) and relevant third party’s thoughts, stories, information and other content that is somehow linked to their equality work. The curators, through their tweets, create interest and arouse curiosity on combatting discrimination in their country. The expectation is that the curators will paint a picture of fighting for equality, different to that usually obtained through our usual publications or reports.

The rules of Meet the National Equality Bodies stipulate that the curators are free to write whatever they want. However, the following behaviour is inappropriate and posts under these criteria will be deleted without prior warning:

1. rudeness, insulting posts, personal attacks, harassment, name & shame, vulgarity, swearing or purposeless inflammatory posts,
2. spam, viruses, malware or posts clearly breaking authors rights,
3. calling for any kind of illegal activities,
4. multiple or repeated posting of the same thread or topic ad nauseam.

For technical reasons, it is not possible to differentiate who is the author of a particular tweet, i.e. the picture and name that are displayed on Twitter are always of the current curator. This would mean that the tweet in question would be associated with this week’s name and profile picture. However, we ask all of our curators to sign their tweets with their initials, in order to identify who wrote them.

Code of conduct

Equinet includes a Code of Conduct to maintain our discussions in lines of polite conversation. In case the contribution of a debater becomes vulgar, or includes text that is in conflict with this Code, Administrators of the group reserve their right not to share or to delete such a contribution. Published contributions represent opinions of debaters and Equinet does not bear responsibility for their content and truth.

1. Refrain from personal attacks (against the curators or others), hateful posts and persistent trolling. This is not a space for any type of discrimination or other forms of hate speech. Please respect other people’s views and beliefs and consider your impact on others when interacting with @equineteurope.
2. Contributions which spread, defend or encourage violence, zealotry, extremism, racism, antisemitism and hate towards concrete persons or groups of persons, as well as contributions with obscene content, vulgarisms or which can cause public outrage are inadmissible.
3. It is forbidden to publish discussion contributions under the name of another person, act like an employee, administrator of a service or other (particularly publicly active person), who could feel damaged by such action.
4. It is inadmissible to spam the discussion by publishing the same contribution several times or contributions with the same subject matter, multiple references to a concrete website or contribution with graphic elements with an aim to draw attention to it (e. g. texts written fully in capital letters etc.).
5. It is inadmissible to spread false, distorted or intentionally misrepresenting information and to promote commercial material or private companies.
6. It is prohibited to include in discussions information concerning the identity of other debaters and their personal data, in particular their address or telephone number etc.
7. Information in discussion forums published by users cannot be attributed to Equinet as its statements. In assessment of information gained at these fora it should be taken into account that they may be shared by people of different ages and experience. Prior to taking any steps, it is hence appropriate to assess their credibility.
8. When debating on Equinet’s Twitter page, everybody is obliged to observe the EU legislation. Publishing links to online contents which are in conflict with EU laws is forbidden. Equinet does not take responsibility for the content published by the users, nor for its review by other debaters.
9. Debaters on the Equinet Twitter page agree with this Code and observe it. By accessing the stated services, debaters agree with these rules and commit to observe them.
10. Equinet reserves the right to modify this Code any time, therefore, it is recommended that the visitors of the portal and page on social media regularly consult this Code and make sure that they act in accordance with the rules laid down therein.

The @equineteurope account on Twitter is a platform that supports the idea of free speech and democracy. It’s meant to be a space that invites opinions and debates, not hate and trolling.

Blocking policy

Each curator on @equineteurope has the right to block twitterers who interact with the account, if she or he deems this necessary. Those accounts will remain blocked when a new curator takes over the account the following week. These measures are taken to ensure the wellbeing of our curators as well as to protect freedom of speech.