Social media terms of use

Learn about the terms and conditions that apply when you interact with our social media pages.

On this page

Our social media pages

We (us, our or the Fair Work Ombudsman, a statutory office created by the Fair Work Act 2009) use our Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter pages to post information on your workplace rights and obligations under Australian workplace laws.

Our functions include educating workplaces about Australia’s workplace relations system and ensuring compliance with Australian workplace laws. Our services are free to all workers and employers in Australia. You can find more information at About us or visit our website at www.fairwork.gov.au.

Our social media pages are a fair space where everyone gets a fair go. We want to hear your thoughts and ideas, but please treat each other with respect and follow our page rules.

Need our help?

If you wish to discuss a specific workplace matter with an adviser, please call the Fair Work Infoline on 13 13 94 (Monday to Friday, 8 am to 5:30 pm local time except public holidays) or send us an online enquiry.

Page rules

If you participate on our social media pages, you are taken to have agreed to our page rules. We may change these rules at any time. These rules apply in addition to the terms of service of each social media platform.

You can use our social media pages to ask for general information, advice or assistance about your rights and obligations under Australian workplace laws.

When using our social media pages, discretion is a good rule of thumb. If it is something you would not say at work, school or home, do not post it on our pages. Please respect the privacy of others when posting on our pages, and please do not:

  • post personal information such as addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details or sensitive information relating either to you or other individuals 
  • name a business or employer
  • impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or an organisation when posting on our pages
  • engage in any other unfair, disrespectful, inappropriate or unlawful conduct.

Making comments on social media about your employer and your workplace – even if you don’t name names – can also be against the terms of your employment contract.

You can’t use our social media pages to request assistance from us. Visit Workplace problems to find out how we can help.

We reserve the right to remove posts on our social media pages that don’t comply with our page rules. For example, content will be deleted and may be reported if it:

  • uses obscene or insulting language or images
  • is sexist, racist, offensive, harassing, discriminatory, vilifying or defamatory
  • is bullying, humiliating, threatening or intimidating
  • is fraudulent
  • is irrelevant, misinformation or misleading
  • is spam, advertising or promotes commercial interests
  • contains confidential, personal information or sensitive information
  • relates to a past or present workplace investigation or legal matter
  • links to any non-government page or website.

We will not respond to such content and users who post such content may be blocked. We may also close comments sections.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in any post or otherwise contained on our social media pages are those of the individual poster. Views expressed on our social media pages by anyone other than us are not our views and we do not endorse or support them and disclaim all liability for those views, including with respect to their accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness.

The information we post on our social media pages is general in nature and is not intended to serve as specific advice. We take care to ensure our information is accurate when posting, but we cannot guarantee its accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness. How our information applies to you will depend on your personal situation. You can contact us (see above) or you may wish to get independent advice from a union, employer association, workplace relations professional or lawyer.

We may link to external websites, pages, platforms and applications (sites) for your convenience. Any links available through our social media pages regarding entities, organisations, products or services do not constitute our endorsement of or affiliation with those entities, organisations products or services. We do not control and are in no way responsible for external sites, including the accuracy, reliability, currency or completeness of their material or any related entities, organisations, products or services. If you're following links to other sites, we encourage you to examine the copyright, privacy and disclaimer notices on those sites.

Privacy

Social media platforms are controlled and operated by third parties, and are not government websites or applications. Please be mindful about disclosing personal information on our social media pages, as they are public and any post you make may be visible to others. You can learn more about your privacy when using social media platforms through the following links:

We may collect and use information about you to respond to your social media posts. We may also use your personal information to monitor and evaluate the advice we provide to you. Without this information, we may not be able to assist you or ensure that we are providing consistent and reliable advice. For more information about how we deal with personal information, please view our Privacy Policy.

Our Privacy Policy contains information about accessing and correcting your personal information if you think it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. It also has information about how you can complain about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles and how we will deal with your complaint.

Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia 2009

This work posted by the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman is copyright. View our full Copyright Statement.