Digital Community Guidelines

Thank you for participating in MGFOA. All participants in MGFOA, either as members, non-members, event attendees, or guests, need to be mindful of different customs, cultures, and laws. By hosting in-person and virtual activities with digital access to key programming, we can distribute MGFOA content to the broadest possible government finance audience across the state and country. However, we cannot guarantee that any specific country will allow us to share our content or will not be offended by something and take some action to restrict content from MGFOA. As a result, we ask that you please work with us and be sensitive to the statewide and global nature of the audience.

In addition to our MGFOA Code of Conduct, we provide the following guidelines for our community of members, non-members, event attendees, and guests. These guidelines fall under a “common sense” philosophy and apply to all content and activity within the MGFOA digital tools, including the MGFOA event mobile apps, the MGFOA Member Portal experience, and other websites and tools that may be provided by MGFOA for use by members, non-members, event attendees, and guests (collectively, “Digital Tools”). This is considered a living document that we regularly update based on the evolution of the technology community.

To protect the integrity of our activities, MGFOA reserves the right to remove anyone from or revoke access to, our Digital Tools at any time, without prior warning, for any conduct that we determine to be inappropriate or harmful. Consequences may include removal of content, suspension of account(s), cancellation of your membership or registration without a refund, revocation of your access to the Digital Tools, or in some cases, removal from physical MGFOA venues throughout the state. Please refer to your Membership agreements or MGFOA Registration Terms and Conditions for more information.

As referred to in these Digital Community Guidelines, we will use “MGFOA”, “we”, or “us” for any references to the Michigan Government Finance Officers Association. We will use “you” for references to the members, non-members, event attendees, guests, or other end users of the Digital Tools.

Breaking the Law

You must respect all applicable local, national, and international laws while using our services. Any content or activity featuring, encouraging, offering, or soliciting illegal activity is prohibited.

Hateful Conduct and Harassment

MGFOA prohibits use of the Digital Tools to facilitate hateful conduct or harassment. MGFOA may take a range of enforcement actions on all accounts associated with such conduct, including and up to indefinite suspension.

Violence and Threats

Any activity that may endanger human life or lead to physical harm of another person, or any depiction of such activity, is prohibited.

Acts and threats of violence will be taken seriously and are considered zero-tolerance violations and all accounts associated with such activities will be indefinitely suspended. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Attempts or threats to physically harm or kill others
  • Attempts or threats to hack, DDOS, or SWAT others
  • Use of weapons to physically threaten, intimidate, harm, or kill others

MGFOA does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism, or violent extremist actors or acts. This includes threatening to or encouraging others to commit acts that would result in serious physical harm to groups of people or significant property destruction.

You may not display or link terrorist or extremist propaganda, including graphic pictures or footage of terrorist or extremist violence, even for the purposes of denouncing such content.

Unauthorized Sharing of Private Information

Do not invade the privacy of others. You may not share content that may reveal private personal information about individuals, or their private property, without their permission. This includes but is not limited to:

  • Sharing personally identifiable information (such as real name, location, or ID)
  • Sharing restricted or protected social profiles or any information from those profiles
  • Sharing content that violates another’s reasonable expectation of privacy, for example streaming from a private space or recording a private meeting, without permission

Impersonation

Content or activity meant to impersonate an individual or organization is prohibited. Any attempts to misrepresent yourself as a member of MGFOA staff is a zero-tolerance violation.

Spam, Scams, and Other Malicious Conduct

Any content or activity that disrupts, interrupts, harms, or otherwise violates the integrity of MGFOA or another user’s experience or devices is prohibited. Such activity includes:

  • Posting excessive amounts of repetitive, unwanted messages or user reports
  • Distributing unauthorized advertisements
  • Phishing
  • Defrauding others
  • Spreading malware or viruses
  • Misinformation Tampering (such as artificially inflating viewer stats)
  • Defacing, or attempting to deface, website pages or other MGFOA services/sites (such as uploading inappropriate or malicious content)

Nudity, Pornography, and Other Sexual Content

Nudity and sexually explicit content or activities, such as pornography, sexual acts or intercourse, and sexual services, are prohibited.

Content or activities that threaten or promote sexual violence or exploitation are strictly prohibited and may be reported to law enforcement. Child exploitation will be reported to authorities via the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Sexually suggestive content or activities are also prohibited, although they may be allowed in educational contexts or for pre-approved licensed content, in each case subject to additional restrictions.

Extreme Violence, Gore, and Other Obscene Conduct

Content that exclusively focuses on extreme or gratuitous gore and violence is prohibited.

CONTACT

If you have any questions about these terms and conditions, please contact us at [email protected]