Commenting Rules

Civil Rights Defenders strives to maintain a good environment in our commenting sections. We manage all comments in accordance with the Swedish BBS Act. Therefore, there are rules to follow. We reserve the right to hide or delete comments in violation of the rules or if you do not respect human rights or the principle of equal value for all.

• You are welcome to discuss but remember to be decent to each other.
• We do not allow comments containing threats, hate, harassment, personal attacks, insults, incitement to hatred, slander or lies.
• We do not allow racist, xenophobic, discriminatory, ableism, sexist, gay or transphobic statements or those against human rights.
• We do not allow spam or pure link posting without explanation. Your comments should be understandable without a link. Such comments may be hidden as we cannot review the content.
• Comments should stay on topic. We stay away from discussions that pull the focus away from what the post is about.
• Your comments will be visible to anyone. Leave no sensitive information.
• It is prohibited to impersonate or appear as someone else.

The commenting section is monitored in accordance with Sweden’s Electronic Bulletin Boards (BBS) Act. This means we are legally obliged to delete illegal comments containing threats, unlawful infringement of privacy, incitement, incitement to hatred, racial persecution, child pornography, unlawful descriptions of violence, breach of copyright, or publicly encouraging people to commit an act of terrorism or other serious crimes. These will be reported to the police. You are responsible for your own comments. Anyone publishing a comment violating the law may be personally held responsible for it. Comments that violate the rules may be hidden, deleted or reported to the platform. If you repeatedly violate the rules, you may be blocked from further commenting on our social media accounts.

These rules are not a restriction of freedom of expression. In Sweden, you can say and write almost anything you want but there are legal restrictions, such as threats and incitement to hatred. In addition, freedom of expression doesn’t mean you have the right to express your opinions anywhere you’d like, such as our channels. We have chosen to maintain pleasant and constructive commenting sections to make everyone feel welcome and safe.

Civil Rights Defenders processes personal information in accordance with our privacy policy here. Comments or questions? Email us here.