Social Media Comments Policy
Welcome to the #MyContraception community.
- We believe that every woman deserves to live a self-determined life.
- We believe that every woman has different aspirations, goals, and dreams.
- We believe that every woman should know about her options in contraception.
Empowering women with knowledge is the core goal of this community. We want to help women rethink their contraception and provide them with all the information necessary for a confident and productive talk with their healthcare provider. The ultimate goal is to change the widespread mindset of settling on the first or most readily available contraceptive option, to a well-informed, rethought decision, so that in the end, every woman can proudly state: “this is #MyContraception…”
Through this community, we want to empower you to speak to your doctor about your contraceptive options and provide you with information to make the best decision for your body and lifestyle. Let's create a space where we can exchange our ideas in an un-biased, non-judgmental manner.
So that we can all be on the same page, please take a few minutes to read the information below for more details about our community guidelines and why content may need to be removed from our page.
Introduction
MyContraception South Africa is a social media page, created to provide information about sexual health and contraception and is brought to you by Bayer South Africa. Since Bayer is a company in the very regulated pharmaceutical industry, we are required to follow specific rules and guidelines when communicating publicly. Many of our medicines are used to treat serious medical conditions and need to be treated with care and only prescribed by trained medical professionals. Also, prescription only contraceptives require thorough medical counselling before individual usage to make sure that they are best suited to you and your unique medical needs. Since every one of us is unique, it would be irresponsible to provide medical advice through this channel as it is impossible to know what is best for you unless you have been thoroughly assessed and diagnosed by a medical professional. Because of this, we encourage you to talk to your doctor about your concerns and get the right advice.
Age restriction
We ask that you be at least 14 years old to participate on this page and if you are a minor in your jurisdiction (but at least 14), please do not post your comment without the knowledge and permission of a parent or legal guardian. If you are an adult, and your post contains the name or likeness of a minor, you must be the parent or legal guardian of that minor.
Community
We have a team of community managers monitoring the page regularly, so that our community can benefit from this page. We do our best to moderate and respond quickly to your comments and feedback and aim to check in several times a day during business hours. Please remember that this forum may contain the opinions and views of other users and while we are monitoring the conversation to ensure users’ posts comply with these guidelines, we cannot be responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any comments or materials posted by users. We also take great care to avoid unmonitored or unverified medical information being posted here so that we can make sure that everyone in our community is kept safe. Therefore we reserve the right to remove posts, comments, pictures or videos from our timeline at our sole discretion, when they are not consistent with our guidelines or the regulatory rules of the medical and pharmaceutical industry.
Comments
We welcome comments and these are highly appreciated. That is why we created this community for us to have open communication about contraception.
Our social media channels are currently only operated in English and so for now we will only be able to address your comments if you provide them to us in English.
Talking about products and medications
Comments, messages, posts or statements made by users on our social media channels do not necessarily reflect our opinion, however, we are required to meet all the regulations that govern our industry. One regulation is to prohibit the promotion of any prescription only medication to an audience of people who are not healthcare professionals. That is why we will remove any post(s) that refer to a pharmaceutical brand from any company including Bayer, whether this post is positive or negative.
Talking about medical issues
The content available on our social media channel(s) is provided to our audiences for informational purposes only. The information is not intended to replace any individual medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please always speak to your doctor or healthcare specialist for individual medical care and advice. All medicines may cause side effects. If you would like to report an adverse event or product complaint, please feel free to contact us:
For South African visitors:
- Please contact us via our local website at https://www.bayer.co.za/ or email us at zapv@bayer.com.
- You can also ask your healthcare provider for more information or contact your local health authority.
- Talking to others on the page
As we respect all visitors of this page in return we ask that everyone treat each other with respect, even if we don't agree from time to time. It is not our intention to censor this page since we want to encourage open dialogue about sex, periods, pregnancy and contraception. We do, however, need to maintain this platform as a safe space to share information. Because of this, there may be situations where we are required to remove comments, videos, images or posts and we reserve the right to delete any post(s) at our sole discretion.
We will not tolerate the following:
- Disrespectful or vulgar language and profanity of any kind.
- Insults, threats or harassment of organisations, Bayer employees or other users (whether part of the community or not), are not allowed.
- Unfavourable comments about institutions, organisations or companies.
- Any defamatory, indecent, hateful, sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, disgraceful, vulgar, inappropriate, or any other prejudiced opinions or comments will not be tolerated.
- Hate propaganda or calls to violence of any kind.
- Calls to join demonstrations or rallies of any political orientation.
- Any violation(s) of the rights of third parties, in particular copyright.
- Posts or comments that are off-topic or that do not relate to the messages or topics being discussed.
- Offering of goods or services (whether commercial or private in nature), or using this social media channel as an advertising space.
- Spam or any form of automatically generated content or repeatedly posting the same comment.
- Repeated violations will be taken seriously and may result in our removing and/or banning these users from the page.
We encourage the following:
We encourage our community and anyone participating in the conversation to keep it friendly, respectful and relevant.
The style of communication on this page should be:
- • Treat every other user as you would like to be treated yourself.
- • Everyone has the right to express their own opinion. Please respect this and try not to force your opinion on anyone else.
- • Respect the rights and choices of others.
- If you would like to report a side effect or quality complaint related to a Bayer product, please contact your healthcare professional (doctor or pharmacist), or your local health authority.
- Reports can also be directed to: Local pharmacovigilance office: zapv@bayer.com
- Bayer South Africa: www.bayer.co.za
- Report a side-effect or email: zapv@bayer.com
- If you would like to report a product quality complaint to Bayer for Pharmaceutical Products please email zaqualityph@bayer.com
- If you would like any further information on a Bayer product for human use please contact us on za-medinfo@bayer.com.
- Conditions of use
Should you wish to know more about Bayer, please visit our website: https://www.bayer.co.za/en/about-bayer/
Should you wish to know more about Bayer’s privacy policy, please follow this link: https://www.bayer.co.za/en/privacy.php
Should you wish to know more about your contraceptive options, please visit our community website: www.mycontraception.co.za
