While many big media companies have a slew of social media guidelines for its staffers, The New York Times doesn’t. According to Phil Corbett, the Times’ associate managing editor for standards, that’s because they just feel like it isn’t needed.

Corbett told Poynter that strapping staffers down with a lot of rules is counterproductive. He then added some obvious points:

They need to realize that social media is basically a public activity, it’s not a private activity, and that people will know that they work for the Times, that they are Times journalists, and will identify them with the Times. And so they should just keep that in mind and be careful not to do anything on social media that would undercut their credibility.

In other words, use common sense and don’t be an idiot. Seems pretty straightforward to us.