Document details

Using Social Media in Community-Based Protection: A Guide

UNHCR (2021), 240 pp.
"This Guide aims to support UNHCR country offices in the use of Social Media to protect People of Concern (PoCs) and ensure they enjoy their rights. We will show how UNHCR staff and partners can develop a Community-Based Protection (CBP) strategy, using Social Media in a way that respects UNHCR’s data protection policy and PoCs’ rights to privacy and security. The aim is to mobilize and support sustainable digital structures that represent everyone in a given community and develop appropriate protection responses on Social Media. In this guide, we define Social Media as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or participate in social networking (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and You Tube). We also mean software that enables messages to be sent and received instantly, also referred to as “Messaging Apps” (e.g. WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal and FB Messenger). Social Media give people a voice but they are not entirely innocuous. Their capacity to generate and harvest huge amounts of metadata and inferred data mean they can be used and abused in ways not apparent to users, and beyond UNHCR’s control. This guide should be shared with all protection partners and stakeholders interested in how Social Media can enhance protection while avoiding security and privacy risks to People of Concern. With due diligence, Social Media can strengthen participation, engagement, transparency, outreach and advocacy. The aim is to incorporate the feedback, ideas and opinions of People of Concern in our future protection programming." (Page 9)
1 Social Media Situation Analysis, 20
2 Risk Assessment, 41
3 How to set up Social Media channels for Community-Based Protection, 65
4 Community Engagement, 89
5 Moderation and Sensitive Content, 112
6 Rumors and Misinformation, 127
7 Feedback and Response Mechanisms, 143
8 Connecting Social Media to Offline, 160
9 Social Media Analytics, 175
10 Ads, Outreach and Advocacy, 192
11 Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, 205
Factsheets, 223