The Greater Birmingham Humane Society (GBHS) manages a variety of social media channels and hopes to both inform and engage a community of users sharing information and facilitating conversations. Your input and participation are encouraged and appreciated across all GBHS online channels. We always welcome our community to join discussions, ask questions, share views and provide insight as long as the nature of these posts is constructive, not offensive, abusive or inappropriate .

When we share information and opinions with our friends, families, communities and the world around us, we can achieve extraordinary things - new ideas, opportunities, friendships and collaborations. It is our hope that the comments on our social channels can foster an environment conducive to these types of interactions. Counter-speech in the form of accurate information and alternative viewpoints can help create a safer and more respectful environment. We want to avoid content that is abusive or harmful to the rest of the community.

For this reason, we have adopted Facebook’s Community Standards as our own. Our Community Standards aim to find balance between giving people a place to express themselves and promoting a welcoming and safe environment for everyone. If you post to one of our social media channels, or respond or comment on content that we have shared, you are agreeing to abide by these Community Guidelines. In order to best support a social media environment that is safe and constructive, we reserve the right to reject or remove comments that do not keep with this policy and to block or ban users who continue to violate this policy.

Please keep in mind the following guidelines when posting to GBHS social media channels:

  • Please do not use profanity in your messages. We are a family-friendly organization. Be aware that a profanity filter is in place so that any comments containing profane content will be automatically hidden.
  • Please do not post obscene or inappropriate content. This includes bullying, abusive, threatening, harmful, graphic, unlawful, harassing, slanderous or defamatory material and personal attacks on individuals. We have zero tolerance for any behavior that puts people in danger, whether someone is organizing or advocating real-world violence or taking part in online bullying of others. We allow you to speak freely on matters and people of public interest, but Facebook’s Community Standards do not allow content that appears to purposefully target private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them. This content includes, but is not limited to:
    • Comments from pages that identify and shame private individuals,
    • Images of private individuals posted without their permission.
    • Images altered to degrade private individuals.
    • Photos or videos of physical bullying posted to shame the victim.
  • In addition, GBHS will never tolerate content that is sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise hateful or distasteful.
  • We prohibit the use of the GBHS’s social media channels to facilitate or organize criminal activity that causes physical harm to people, businesses or animals, or financial damage to people or businesses. We work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.
  • We do not allow advertising, spamming or promotion of unrelated material. Please do not promote misinformation - keep comments on topic and relevant to the issue at hand.
  • Local governments and law enforcement require us to remove content that violates local laws. They work hard to keep our communities - and by extension, our animals - safe every day.
  • As the county's contracted animal agent, the GBHS works to support these entities in any endeavors relating to animal cruelty investigations. This is why we cannot allow the circulation of photos or video of animals that are involved in ongoing investigations. Please refrain from posting photos or videos that may be evidence as well as from discussing cases beyond what has been previously approved and released by the local Sheriff’s Department. Sharing these photos across the internet does more harm than good. Releasing private information about open investigations can potentially jeopardize an entire criminal case.
    • The GBHS will remove any comments, photos or posts that are deemed to risk any ongoing investigation, therefore infringing on the efforts of law enforcement. The well-being of these animals is our top priority, as is bringing justice for those committing acts against them.
  • We do not allow the sharing of internal HR matters, as we are legally unable to discuss these in a public forum. Out of respect for the personal privacy of all current and former employees, please send us a private message if you would like to continue the conversation.
  • GBHS cannot disclose information about surrendered pets, as owners are told during the surrender process. For any questions or concerns regarding a situation involving a surrendered pet, please call 205-942-1211.
  • Do not use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting the community or annoying other users. The GBHS reserves the right to ban suspicious users or those posting from multiple accounts. Requiring people to use their authentic identity on Facebook helps motivate all of us to act responsibly.

By posting any content on the GBHS page, you are agreeing that your post complies with these guidelines and does not contain any of the restricted content listed above. Please note, however, that we may at any time remove any comment or post that we believe does not so comply.

We are here to help. If you have a complaint, grievance, question, etc., we encourage you to contact us at contactus@gbhs.org so our team can appropriately address your concerns.