Social Media Community Guidelines

Scottish Rugby know that being a fan inspires passion and opinion in the good moments and bad.

We also believe in the importance of using social media to directly communicate and engage with our fans globally. Social media allows us to share our stories, hear your stories, and start conversations with people all over the world.

However, it is important that our fans can engage with us and each other in a respectful, positive, and safe environment.

We understand that social media can sometimes be an unpleasant place, where some people choose to bully, and abuse others and a minority use to spread hate.

Scottish Rugby has a zero-tolerance policy on racism, homophobia, bullying, abuse, hate speech or discrimination of any kind on our social media channels. People participating in such actions are not welcome in our online community.

This Social Media Community Code sets clear guidance on what is acceptable when engaging with us, our players, our staff and fellow fans. It also outlines what will not be tolerated. This is a collective effort, and we call on our fans to support us to create a welcoming, safe and inclusive online environment for all.

Our official social media channels include, but are not limited to:

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads.

Guidance For Fans

We are committed to creating a safe online environment across our social media channels and we ask that our fans support our mission by reflecting our values and beliefs when engaging with us and each other online. Click the drop downs below to find out more information.

What We Want

  • Respectful debate and discussion.
  • A positive, inclusive and supportive environment for all fans to come together and interact.
  • To hear your voices and opinions, even if we don’t agree with them!
  • Fan-created photos and videos.
  • Relevant, topical conversations.

What We Don’t Want

  • Discrimination of any kind, including racism, homophobia, sexism.
  • Use of bad language and swear words.
  • Insulting, threatening, defamatory or obscene posts or comments.
  • Unlawful posts or comments.
  • Spam, links to unrelated content or self-promotion.
  • Targeted bullying or abuse towards an individual.

Community Monitoring

Our team closely moderates our online community across all digital platforms, and we also utilise Arwen – a leading provider of community management AI tools – to help ensure the interaction and engagement on our social media channels are in line with our guidelines.

Reporting Abuse

Social media has the power to unite and connect people from all over the world, but it can also be an outlet for people to share negativity and disrespectful comments. Discrimination of any kind has no place in our society and every single one of you has the power to report and stop it if you see it on social media.

If you see something and want to report it, find some advice below on how to do so. If you have any serious concerns, you can also message us on the different platforms.

Social Media Guidelines

  • Instagram

    Swipe left or hold down on the comment (depending on the device) and press on the report icon – which is a box with an exclamation mark. A menu will appear. Choose the option you feel best represents the comment you are reporting. Click on the option and hit ‘Submit Report’.

    More information and help on how to report on Instagram

  • Facebook

    Press down on the comment (or hover over it and hit the three dots, if on desktop) and the menu will appear. Hitting ‘Hide Comment’ will mean you no longer see that comment on that post.

    Click on ‘Find support or report comment’ and select the options from the menu, that you feel best represents the comment. More menus appear depending on what you choose. Click ‘submit’ to send the report.

    More information and help on reporting comments on Facebook.

  • Twitter

    Click the three dots on the right-hand corner. Hit ‘Block’ to stop the user seeing your posts, ‘Mute’ to stop seeing the user’s posts or ‘Report Tweet’ to flag the comment to the platform. The detailed ‘Report an Issue’ menu will appear, navigate this menu and select what you feel is the most relevant option for the comment or post.

    For more assistance and information on reporting tweets.

  • YouTube

    On each YouTube comment and video, hitting the three dots brings up a menu. Click ‘Report’ and select the option that best fits the situation. Hit ‘Report’ to submit it to YouTube.

    For more information and a helpful video.

  • TikTok

    Hold down on the comment and hit ‘Report’. A menu will appear. Select the most relevant option and click ‘Submit’. To report a video, click the ‘share’ arrow and you can find the ‘Report’ button at the bottom. Select the appropriate option and click ‘Submit’.

    Further information and help

  • LinkedIn

    Hit the three dots to bring up the menu and select the ‘Report’ option, which takes you to a further menu. Select the relevant option and proceed through the next menus, to submit the report.

    More information

  • Report Incidents To Scottish Rugby

    If you have witnessed something that you believe violates our community guidelines, you can report this to us at [email protected].

    To support our investigations please provide the following:

    • A screenshot of the content that you are reporting.
    • The date and time of posting.
    • The username of the perpetrator.
    • A link to the original Scottish Rugby post where the comment was left.

    We will investigate these reports on an individual basis before deciding on an appropriate course of action. Examples of these actions can include, but are not limited to:

    • Removing posts/comments/messages.
    • Blocking perpetrators from our social media channels.
    • Reporting the account/user/comment to the relevant social media platform.

    The decision on whether to take action will remain at our discretion. Any decision not to act does not constitute an endorsement by Scottish Rugby of the content under complaint.

    All reports will remain confidential and each report will be investigated on an individual basis. We will acknowledge your report and we will reach out if we require any further information from you. Every report is important to us, and we will investigate each one. Please note that it will not always be possible to provide an outcome, however, this does not mean that we have not investigated the report nor acted.

    Where necessary, we will assist the authorities/police should they wish to act on any reports made by ourselves or our online community in relation to any behaviour that has occurred on our social media channels.