RICS Social Media User Generated Content (UGC) Moderation Guidelines

The following social media guidelines relate to our social media channels - this includes, but is not limited to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and YouTube.

We encourage and welcome open and relevant conversations in our social media channels. For this reason, these guidelines exist to help us create a safe place where we all can engage, make comments, suggestions and ask questions and are not about censoring your views.

RICS accepts no obligation to monitor and moderate the use of our social media profiles but reserves the right to do so.

Content Moderation Guidelines

Communication is important and if you are a member of RICS, you should always comply with our professional and ethical standards explained in the Rules of Conduct, and social media guidance for RICS members when accessing, using or posting any content on social media. Failure to do so may result in disciplinary proceedings being brought against you and/or may lead to a termination of your RICS membership.

RICS may disclose any information about you and any content posted by you as required by law or to prevent or investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft.

For details about how and why we use any personal information we collect about you, see the RICS Privacy Policy.

We reserve the right to remove or hide content on our social media profiles posted by users deemed to be inappropriate. In some cases, we reserve the right to ban or block users from posting to our social media profiles depending on the frequency, scale or content posted.

Inappropriate content may include:

Messages that constitute a breach of RICS’ Rules of Conduct and social media platforms’ community guidelines.
Content that is untrue, defamatory (or likely to give rise to an allegation of defamation), misleading or inaccurate (including misinformation or disinformation), fraudulent, threatening, pornographic, obscene, threatening, menacing, harassing, racist, offensive or otherwise unlawful or illegal, including links to any web sites or other materials which include any such content.
Hate speech, symbols, and groups are prohibited on our social media profiles. RICS removes content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanizes, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or disability status.
Harmful or offensive messages that result in personal attack on individuals, including other people using our social media channels, and our staff.
Private addresses, private phone numbers, personal email addresses or other online information deemed to be private will be removed.
Any type of content which was created by anyone other than the poster unless they have that other person’s/organisation’s authority to share.
Any content that could be interpreted as spam. This includes, but is not limited to repeated duplicate posts, either in single or multiple threads, repeated comments that are not relevant to or do not further discussions, unsolicited private messages, repeated unsolicited links to external sites that are not relevant to discussions.
Repetitive negative messages that are not constructive and respectful.
Users shall not use our social media profiles for advertising or product endorsement purposes. References made by users to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or company name is for the information and convenience of the user, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favouring by RICS or any other associated organisation. You can mention relevant products and services if they support your comment and are relevant to the conversation.
Comments that impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation or are posted by a profile that is not a page, or a real person.
Comments that break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity or breaches of copyright.
Breach of any of the terms of any of the social media platforms themselves.
Personal cases where a know-how expertise is requested, customer care issues, or report of a breach of conduct. Our social media channels are not the right space to request professional assistance or handle personal situations.

You can contact us via this link or report a concern about a RICS regulated firm or professional by visiting this page.

Replies and Direct Messages

Due to the large volume of traffic, it is not always possible to respond to every post, response, question, or message. Any query or comments that require urgent attention please contact us directly.

RICS Staff on Social Media

Some of our staff post on social media under their own names or pseudonyms. The views and opinions of staff do not necessarily state or reflect those of RICS or any other Associated Organisation, and users agree that RICS (to the fullest extent permitted by law) bears no liability for the content of any post.

If you believe that, or you have been notified by a third party or another user that, any content infringes or allegedly infringes another user’s or a third party’s intellectual property rights, please contact the RICS Legal Department immediately by email at legal@rics.org.