1. Professional Behaviour and Editorial Interactions
Integrity in Reporting and Peer Review
Contributors must approach the editorial and peer-review process with professional humility and respect. Because GNN reserves the absolute right to edit, update, or decline submissions to maintain factual accuracy and institutional objectivity, contributors are expected to cooperate fully with editors during revision cycles. Disagreements must be handled through civilized, constructive discourse.
Accountability & Transparency
- Factual Corrections: If an error or piece of errata is discovered in a published article, contributors are obligated to work immediately with the editorial team to issue a transparent correction. Bypassing or hiding inaccuracies is considered a breach of professional conduct.
- Disclosure of Conflicts: Contributors must proactively disclose any personal, financial, or political conflicts of interest that could influence—or appear to influence—the objectivity of their piece. Hidden promotional agendas are strictly forbidden.
- You can provide feedback to contact@criticalmatters.net, dpo@criticalmatters.net or feedback@criticalmatters.net.
2. Harassment and Interpersonal Conduct
We maintain a strict zero-tolerance environment for hostile behavior. Our news platform must remain a safe space for diverse viewpoints, rigorous reporting, and investigative discourse:
- Zero Tolerance for Harassment: We explicitly prohibit any form of bullying, intimidation, stalking, or targeted personal attacks against fellow contributors, sources, or subjects of news stories.
- Prohibition of Discriminatory Conduct: Professional interactions and content must remain completely free of hate speech, slurs, or exclusionary behavior targeting individuals based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or nationality.
- Protection of Sources and Co-workers: Doxxing, threatening, or maliciously exposing the unverified private data (PII) of colleagues or news subjects will result in immediate termination of platform privileges.
3. Commercial Abuse and Exploitation
Our platform’s editorial space is reserved exclusively for high-quality, newsworthy content. It cannot be bartered, manipulated, or exploited for non-editorial gain:
- Strict Prohibition on Paid Link Insertion: Contributors must never accept compensation, favors, or gifts from third parties in exchange for embedded backlinks, positive coverage, or brand mentions. GNN actively audits content to block stealth marketing and link building schemes.
- Plagiarism and Intellectual Property: Passing off someone else’s data, phrasing, or imagery as your own is a severe ethical violation. Proper citation and legal media attribution are non-negotiable professional standards.
4. Legal Compliance & Freedom of Speech
While GNN strongly advocates for freedom of expression and robust investigative commentary, all participants must operate safely within legal boundaries. Contributors are personally responsible for ensuring their behavior and submissions do not violate prevailing local or international statutes. Content that constitutes actionable libel, intentional defamation, copyright infringement, or unlawful incitement will be immediately rejected or removed.
5. Enforcement Framework: The Two-Strike Policy
Violations of this Code of Conduct are handled systematically through our standard operational enforcement matrix:
Strike One (Official Warning): The first identified instance of non-professional conduct (e.g., severe hostility in editorial communications, failure to disclose minor conflicts of interest, or negligent sourcing) results in an unassigned submission and a formal written warning from the editorial board detailing the policy breach.
Strike Two (Permanent Revocation): A second code violation, or a repeated failure to maintain GNN’s professional reporting standards, results in a permanent ban. The contributor’s account is deactivated, existing contributions may be audited or removed, and the individual is blocked from publishing with GNN in perpetuity.
Note: GNN reserves the absolute right to skip the warning phase and issue an immediate permanent ban for severe ethical breaches, including explicit hate speech, the upload of explicit or unlawful media, intentional plagiarism, or actions causing direct legal liability.