STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir government, on Friday, issued strict guidelines for government employees regarding the use of social media.
The guidelines stipulate that no employee shall, through a post, tweet, or through other social media means, discuss or criticise any government policy or action taken by the government. It also prohibits employees from taking part in such discussions or criticism on social media pages and microblogs. It says that no employee shall post, tweet or share content that is political or anti-secular and communal or subscribe to or follow pages, communities or Twitter handles and blogs of such nature.
“No employee shall himself/herself or through any person dependent on him/her for maintenance, or under his care or control, undertake any such activity on social media which is, or tends directly or indirectly to be, subversive of the government as by law established in the country or in the Union territory,” it said.
It underlines that employees, directly or indirectly, shall not publish, post or release any information on social media considered confidential or is not meant for public dissemination.
It said the employees have also been directed not to pass any official document or any part thereof to any employee or any such person to whom he is not authorised to communicate information.
However, it says, “An employee may, for the purpose or removing misapprehensions, correcting misstatements, and refuting disloyal and seditious propaganda, defend and explain to the public the policy of government in his posts and tweets on social media”. It also warns the employees against making comments about co-workers or individuals, that are vulgar, obscene, threatening, intimidating, or that violate the conduct rules of employees.
It urges employees not to post grievances about their workplace on social media in the form of videos, posts, tweets or blogs or in any other form and follow the established channels of complaint redressal.
The employees have been warned that the violation of guidelines shall be tantamount to misconduct and invites disciplinary action against the delinquent official under the relevant rules.
“All administrative secretaries, deputy commissioners, heads of departments, managing directors shall immediately proceed against the employees working in their departments/offices who are found to have violated the aforesaid guidelines and rules, in terms of the relevant disciplinary framework,” it said.
