Netiquette guidelines for social media channels

The Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute (BAW) is active on the following social networking sites: BAWBlog, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr. We are happy for you to contact us via these various channels. In order to ensure a successful exchange of views, please find our rules regarding comments below.

  • Comments and contributions must be relevant to the issues covered by the BAW.
  • Contributions containing discriminatory, racist, sexist or illegal remarks, or which are insulting or defamatory, are forbidden.
  • Users are invited to share their views, provided they do so in an objective, fair and respectful manner.
  • The BAW reserves the right to delete contributions that do not adhere to these rules and/or to exclude the user(s) in question. As a rule, any infringements of general laws and regulations shall lead to users being excluded from participating in discussions and may result in legal steps being taken.
  • Content which infringes copyright or the rights of third parties shall also be removed. For their individual protection as well as the protection of third parties, each user should check carefully as to whether he/she is entitled to post the relevant images and videos and must also ensure that these do not infringe any copyright, trademarks or rights to a name.
  • Please note the respective terms of service which apply to the use of the different social networking sites.
  • Insofar as comments are protected by copyright, the right of use remains in principle with the author in each case. However, by posting the comment, the author grants the BAW the right to have the contribution posted permanently on the social media channels and to archive it. Furthermore, the BAW has the right to modify, translate, move, delete or close content.
  • The comments made and links provided by users are the responsibility of the respective author and reflect the author’s own opinion. The BAW accepts no responsibility for these. The same applies to content to which the BAW provides access merely by means of a link.