Facebook

Part I: Facebook Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct
Part II: Communication Guidelines
Part III: Reporting and Feedback

Part I: Facebook Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct

Indivisible Eastside is a local chapter of the Indivisible Movement, inspired by the Indivisible Guide. The Indivisible Guide was written by a group of former Congressional staffers who witnessed the success of the Tea Party and turned their experiences into a practical guide for resisting Donald Trump’s agenda.

Indivisible Eastside’s mission is to work effectively together within the Eastside region of metropolitan Seattle to 1) advance progressive, compassionate and antiracist policies and government and 2) Repair, improve and reform damaged social and democratic institutions fractured by decades of conservative policy and the recent Trump administration. See our Mission Statement. In order to make the group as effective as possible, we ask that you follow our Community Guidelines and Code of Conduct. The group is moderated by a small group of volunteers to keep posts appropriate, constructive and action-oriented. Please address any questions or concerns to the administrators of the Facebook Group (via messaging).

Please keep posts to the group relevant to our main goal: advancing progressive policies and government particularly by influencing our local lawmakers and Members of Congress from Washington State:

Senator Patty Murray
Senator Maria Cantwell
Congresswoman Suzan DelBene (1st)
Congresswoman Kim Schrier (8th)
Congressman Adam Smith (9th)
State Legislature LDs 1, 5, 41, 45, 48

The moderators reserve broad discretion in deleting posts or freezing comments on posts that undermine or distract from the mission, and removing members from the group who undermine or distract from the mission.
Moderators may delete posts that are inaccurate, out of date, misleading, or violate the guidelines below.
No sales posts, business or product promotions.
Avoid posting old information, petitions, memes, boycotts, and repeat information (check to see if anyone has already posted about exactly what you want to post on–use the “search this group” tool).
We will not accept bullying, harassment, or calls for violence. Violators will be removed from the group. This behavior includes, but is not limited to:
- a. Personal insults or ad hominem attacks against another group member or public figure.
- b. Discriminatory language. This includes language, jokes, or insults that are racist, degrading, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, classist, anti-immigrant, etc.
- c. Publicizing Private Conversations. Our Facebook Group is a closed group, and despite its size, there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. We ask that our members refrain from sharing screenshots or quoting conversations publicly with the intent to expose or shame someone. Though we may make exceptions for public figures or truly horrific behavior (such as threats against a group or individual), our general policy will be to protect members’ privacy as strongly as we can
- d. Violent threats or incitements to violence of any kind
- e. Unwelcome sexual attention
- f. Posting sexually explicit or violent material
- g. Posting (or threatening to post) other people’s personally identifying information (“doxxing”). This includes the information of elected officials.
- h. Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behaviors.
Please focus on local lawmakers and Members of Congress, and post more sparingly about non-local lawmakers and Members of Congress, unless they are related to an official action.
- To understand why, please see the Indivisible Guide

Part II: Communication Guidelines

Many topics can sometimes be a bit difficult to discuss—so please choose your words with care and without anger when making a post or when commenting. We don’t want to shut down commenting or discussions just because they get a bit difficult—change, cooperation, and understanding, are often difficult yet can be positive. We are all struggling to understand, act, and communicate at a stressful time in our nation’s life, and we are engaging in entirely new ways with each other.
- a. Choose neutral rather than inflammatory language.
- b. We will shut down commenting once we feel a topic has run its course or if it violates our code of conduct in any way.
- c. Our goals are to focus on keeping our members of congress accountable and promoting progressive policies and government and having our voices heard.
We want to give everyone a chance to participate–and given our size, this means you should limit the number of your individual posts in a day (this limit does not apply to commenting).
If you share a post from a closed group or someone’s personal account, it may not be visible to some people. Copy and paste from the original source.
If you share a post from elsewhere, add a comment on why it is important to this group–such as an action to take, the educational message of the post, or critical information to pay attention to.
Please Fact Check! Do your best to fact-check any information before you post it. Check dates on articles to make sure they’re still relevant. Try checking Snopes.com, Politifact.com, or Google.
Please post from original news sources–for instance Huffington Post will cite where their information comes from. Go to that source and repost from there.
Please don’t post from sites that don’t cite their sources–many exist for ad revenue and don’t focus on truth/veracity.
- Sites of Low Veracity–those rated at least 50% mostly false by Pulitzer Prize winning Politifact: Occupy Democrats, The Other 98%, Resistance Report, Addicting Info. Others that are ad revenue focused include USUncut and Liberal America
The Indivisible Eastside organization focuses, in part, on providing a safe forum to communicate and organize around the principle of advancing progressive and compassionate policies and government. IE will not however be endorsing or contributing financially to political candidates. Nonetheless, members are free to use our Facebook group to advocate and organize for candidates they believe will help in our national and local national and local resistance to racist candidates.
We respect the effort and emotional labor of our community members. To show respect for the effort people put into discussions, please do not delete comments and posts unless asked to do so by the moderators. In particular, a deleted top-level post wipes out all the effort other people have put in the comments beneath it. If you edit your post to change the content, please say so in your edit so that conversation threads continue to make sense.
Our community extends beyond Facebook. Conduct in forums outside the Indivisible Eastside Facebook group that is in violation of our Community Guidelines may be cause for removal from the Indivisible Eastside Facebook group. This includes but is not limited to in-person meetings of any other nature, other Facebook groups, and other Indivisible groups.
Lifting the voices of traditionally marginalized groups is central to advancing progressive policies and government. This means that we will at times host difficult, contentious, and uncomfortable conversations about race, religion, age, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual identity and orientation, national origin, citizenship status, accessibility needs, socio-economic status, and mental health. Dismissing these concerns as “identity politics” is tantamount to reinforcing the unfair power structures that got us to the place we are as a nation now. We will not tolerate behavior that seeks to further silence the voices that the Congressional Republicans and Trump followers are already silencing.
Tone Policing: Please note that an emotional reaction to an issue that affects someone personally is not the same as a personal insult or aggression, and will not be treated as such. Please address the content rather than the tone of someone’s comment. Anger is okay, but not communication designed solely to humiliate or escalate.

Part III: Reporting and Feedback

What do I do if I see offensive behavior?

Click ‘report’ to alert the admins. For reporting something outside of a Facebook post please email hello@indivisibleeastside.com

If you are willing to respond yourself, we are grateful and believe this helps build an inclusive and safe community. Keep in mind:

Many in our group are new to activism, and we all can make mistakes. In this situation, we encourage, but do not require, an educational “call-in”: gently point out what is wrong and invite them to learn and change their behavior. For more about calling in, see Sian Ferguson’s article on Everyday Feminism
“Call-outs,” – which means directly and forcefully addressing someone’s oppressive behavior – are still permitted.
If it becomes clear that someone isn’t acting in good faith and continues to act dismissively or in a harassing manner, that is where moderators need to step in.

What will the moderators do about offensive behavior?

Spam, trolling, and malicious behavior is grounds for immediate removal without warning by the moderators.
To address well-intentioned but unproductive or harmful behavior, we will seek to persuade before warning, and warn before banning. A decision to ban someone who is well-intentioned but irretrievably harmful to the group will never be made by one moderator alone.

What do I do if I am “called out” or “called in” for offensive behavior?

Our instinct is often to be defensive and point out our good intentions. Good intentions are necessary, but not sufficient. Our members are expected to stop and listen, and accept criticism gracefully rather than react in defense. If someone calls you out, it isn’t because they think you are a bad person. They are trying to help you communicate your good intentions in a way that is not hurtful to others.

Facebook Group

Join us on our private Facebook group! NOTE: Please make sure you answer the 3 questions so we can accept you into the group. Once there, you’ll find interesting posts about relevant current events and news as well as a general discussion about the resistance to the GOP agenda and policies.

Facebook Page

Also visit and Like our Facebook page which is a public place where we will only be making a few posts maximum per week, mostly action alerts and events. Like the page to have events appear in your Facebook Newsfeed.

Instagram and X

In addition to Facebook, you can follow us on X and Instagram!