Detailed Discussion

Key Issues

Public vs Private

Most social media platforms offer public or private account settings. For an organisation or artist aiming to attract a wide audience, it’s advantageous to have a public account (meaning that anyone can find and view their content). 

A private account, on the other hand, is restricted to only those given permission to follow or join. Content shared on private accounts is not guaranteed to always remain private. Others may republish your content publicly and, as highlighted by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, even if you deactivate your social media account, your content may still exist in archives or old versions of websites (e.g. see the Internet Archive Wayback Machine). 

Social Media Platforms

Each social media platform has their own set of policies and terms of use which you must follow to stay active. If you breach their rules, your content may be censored or your account may be temporarily or permanently suspended. 

Two policies to be particularly aware of are those pertaining to nudity and pornography. As many artworks depict the human body, you may have issues when sharing artworks online. For example, Instagram’s Terms of Use stipulates that whilst they do not allow nudity, ‘Nudity in photos of paintings and sculptures is OK.’ However, this is often inconsistently enforced. 

As a workaround, some people choose to censor or crop parts of an image, however this may only be done with the consent or guidance of an artist, see Intellectual Property. 

There are various existing laws with implications for social media. Consumer Protection laws prohibit businesses from making false, misleading or deceptive claims. The Privacy Act 1988 protects the information you share on social media platforms with an annual turnover of more than $3 million (which includes the major platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter). The Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) regulates copyright in Australia in relation to original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. Defamation laws prohibit misleading and deceptive conduct and injurious falsehoods.

For more information, on Intellectual Property and ICIP, see Intellectual Property and First Nations. Arts Law also provides useful information sheets on Social Media for Artists, Defamation Law and Social Media.

Consent and Attribution

It is important to consider the people and work in the content you share online. Your posts can potentially reach broad and unintended audiences, and can remain online in perpetuity. Responsibilities range from a matter of politeness to legal requirements. 

Good practice before sharing an image featuring people: 

• obtain permission/consent from all people who appear in the image

• obtain permission/consent from the family, if the person in the image is a First Nations person who has passed

• obtain permission/consent from parents/guardians if children are present

• consider if people are doing anything inappropriate or showing anything confidential

Good practice before sharing an image of an artwork: 

• obtain permission from the artist to share the work in this context, see Intellectual Property

• attribute the artist correctly

• if the image is of a First Nations artist or person, ask if they would like their community acknowledged in the attribution, and what their preferred wording is

Sharing

Good practice is to reshare a post the artist has already made publicly. This ensures that the context is maintained and the artist is represented accurately.

Permission does not need to be sought to reshare a post, however:

• the artist must be attributed as the creator. It is best practice to include the artist’s name, title of the work, year and the photographer’s name. If the artist has a social media account, you can also tag them

• you must not reshare or repost an artwork to promote something that is unrelated to the work

For more information, on Intellectual Property (see Intellectual Property), ICIP (see First Nations) and NAVA’s guides on Etiquette for Using Images on Social Media and Copyright and Social Media.

Accuracy

As information on social media can be fast to spread and impossible to retract, it’s important to be accurate with what you share or reshare. 

Before resharing a post, view the profile of the original author and fact check to establish whether what they’re saying is objectively true or a personal opinion.

Assess whether it is appropriate to share on your platform and for your audience (e.g. is it from a private account or culturally sensitive?). Context can sometimes get lost in the high volume of information on social media, so it’s important to be as accurate as possible to minimise any risk of misinterpretation. 

If your work is published without your permission, you can report the infringement to the platform.

Many platforms’ Terms of Service include clauses granting the platform a non-exclusive royalty free licence for any material shared (i.e. they can use your images for any purpose without permission or notification). Artists must weigh up the benefits and risk of sharing their work online.

Employees sharing their work on social media can be a great way to create buzz and insight for your organisation. However, as they are also representatives of your organisation, it’s important to have a conversation or written guidelines about what can be shared. 

Guidelines could include: 

• do not share confidential information or information that is not yet public (e.g. upcoming exhibition details)

• be courteous to peers and ask permission before sharing photos in which they appear

• follow best practice for attribution and copyright, see Intellectual Property

• if sharing a personal opinion, distinguish it as such

Engaging influencers to promote galleries and other projects is now a common and effective marketing strategy. Influencers can provide relatable content and engaged communities. When working with influencers, it’s important to define the relationship and expectations. 

Contra/Gifting 

This is a partnership with mutual benefits but no financial commitment (e.g. providing an influencer with complimentary exhibition tickets in hopes that they share their visit with their followers). It is best practice to contact the influencer first and gauge if they are interested. They have no obligation to accept or share and, if they do, they should disclose that it has been gifted.

Sponsored Content/Paid Partnership

This is an agreement where an influencer will create content in exchange for a fee (e.g. an influencer creates a series of videos about your exhibition, shared on both your profile and theirs). These partnerships should be formalised with a contract, detailing number and format of posts, location, timing, attribution and all other details.

By design, art is often created to be provocative and expressive. This, however, means that additional care should be taken when sharing artworks that could be interpreted as controversial or offensive. In contrast to viewing an artwork in a gallery, where the space and context is controlled, art on social media is more at risk of being received negatively. 

In order to mitigate issues arising, consider undertaking a risk assessment before sharing artworks online.

This could involve: 

• talking to the artist/s and curator/s about if/how/when they would consent to sharing their work online and if they have any existing concerns

• assessing the artworks, including:

  • the reputation of the artist, lender and sponsors

  • the title and subject (e.g. does it include anything culturally insensitive, appropriated, homophobic, xenophobic, ableist, violent or defamatory?)

• alerting your staff and volunteers to any negative criticism

• preparing statements about issues you anticipate may arise 

• creating a plan for if/when something needs to be escalated, removed or discussed with external consultants

Museums and Galleries of NSW and NETS Victoria's guide on Risk Assessment and Management for Exhibition Content provides extensive explanations of this process.

Just as exhibitions require guides to monitor visitors and respond to enquiries, so too do social media accounts. The public may interact with you through comments, direct messages, or tags.

In order to moderate these, consider having: 

• a designated moderator or group of moderators on a schedule

• a style guide for tone of voice or common responses

• a protocol for when something needs to be escalated

As an organisation, you have a duty of care to your staff and collaborators. Social media can draw audiences from all walks of life and with all ranges of opinions and criticisms. Be prepared to protect and support your artists from racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic or other derogatory comments about them, their appearance, or their work. If you anticipate this may be an issue, it would be good practice to complete a risk assessment and talk to the artist beforehand to gauge any support they might need. 

As part of this, you may choose to take some of the actions below (e.g. report, remove, block etc.). This may also be an opportunity to lead by example by educating your followers and reminding them of your policies. 

You also have the right and responsibility to maintain a safe environment for users on your social media platforms. Just as you wouldn’t stand for certain behaviours in a gallery space, you can take fair and assertive actions online if people act inappropriately and cross boundaries. 

Instances that may require attention include: 

• defamatory comments that include personal attacks, insults, expletives, solicitations, advertisements or breaches of privacy 

• hateful, racist, violent, obscene or profane posts, links or images, or comments that incite harassment or illegal activity

• multiple off-topic and/or incomprehensible posts by a single user

• repetitive posts copied and pasted or duplicated by single or multiple users

• ‘trolling’, which is when people seek to provoke others with offensive content

• spam comments from bots

To ensure that content is accessible to audiences:

• ensure text is legible by using concise language, easy-to-read font (minimal script font or emojis), clear text size, and high-contrast colours

• use ‘camel case’ for hashtags (capitalise the first letter of each word so assistive voice-overs will distinguish the words eg #ExhibitionTitle rather than #exhibitiontitle)

• including captions in videos (many platforms offer auto-generated captions)

• adding image descriptions and alt text

For more information, see Access Rights for d/Deaf and Disabled People and Accessible Arts.  

There is a common misconception that images shared on social media are in the ‘public domain’ and can therefore be published without consulting the copyright holder. This is incorrect; even if shared online, copyright of an image remains with its creator/owner and the image should be licensed from them (i.e. the artist or gallery, who may charge a fee depending on the situation). 

Even if a creator has relinquished (e.g. sold) the copyright for their work, they retain moral rights over the work.

For more information, see Intellectual Property.

Indigenous Cultural Intellectual Property

Good practice is to share images with consent. Ensure that that the context is respectful and not derogatory towards the artist or artwork depicted, their community or First Nations people. Images should include attributions crediting the First Nations artist, their community and include any other relevant information, such as their Art Centre. It is important to keep images connected to the artist and the community.

For more information, see First Nations.