A page can be growing nicely and then, overnight, a post is removed, the page is restricted from going live, or a customer complains that their photo was posted without permission. Most of these problems come from not knowing the rules. When you run a client's pages, you are responsible for keeping them inside three sets of rules: the platforms' own rules, the law on personal data, and basic honesty in promotion.
Three kinds of rules
- Platform rules. Every platform publishes community standards or guidelines covering hate, violence, harassment, spam, fake accounts, nudity, and the sale or promotion of regulated goods such as medicines, alcohol, weapons and betting. Breaking them can get posts removed, features limited or a page taken down. You will learn where to read them, why posts get removed and how to appeal.
- Privacy and consent. Customers' names, phone numbers, messages and photos are personal data. Ghana's Data Protection Act, 2012 (Act 843) sets rules for how organisations collect and use personal data, and the Data Protection Commission oversees it. You will learn to ask before posting people, protect inbox details and clean up client data when the work ends.
- Honest promotion. When a post is paid for, or an influencer is paid to promote, followers should be able to tell. Claims about products must be true and, for some products, approved before they are advertised. In Ghana, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) requires approval of adverts for regulated products such as food, medicines, cosmetics and household chemicals, including adverts on social media.