Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU), like many other higher education institutions, has created an official Facebook page for itself. Most of our institutions seem to use their Facebook pages to recruit and market to prospective students, to announce events and milestones for current students and staff, and to maintain a presence in general for the public.
Recently--as in within the 6 days, the Faculty Association (FA) at SIU announced they were going on strike because the FA and the "administration", as Dave Johnson (Chair of FA) so boldly identifies the non-faculty negotiators, could not agree on specific contract terms. These included: furloughs, raises, and sexual harassment adjudication procedures for tenured faculty (so many opinions on tenure--another blog for another time). The link above is more specific on the issues. Johnson does a great job of setting up an "us versus them" mentality and dehumanizes the "administration" by removing names, positions, and generally setting them up as an "other" to be fought. (I wonder how many of these non-negotiable items for the administration are non-negotiable due to binding federal laws, such as Title VII's governing authority over how staff and faculty sexual misconduct cases are adjudicated.)
A huge disappointment to the FA, the "administration" was unwilling to bring forward any new proposals on these issues. The FA states, "The fundamental issues are transparency and accountability. Just as we hold our students and ourselves accountable by giving them a syllabus outlining the criteria by which we will judge them, so too we expect the administration to provide us with transparency and accountability." This approach to negotiation is interesting, especially as we are rapidly approaching finals week. Clearly, the two sides are taking a competitive approach instead of a collaborative approach. Instead of looking at how to agree, they are looking at how to get my way. I wonder if they have hit their hurting stalemate yet.
Regardless, this major impasse is now playing out on SIU's Facebook page. Students are finding that their comments about the strike are being censored. Deleted. Erased. As if the students' voices don't matter, or as if the "administration" doesn't want to hear what the students want to say. I realize students post rude, mean, and sometimes downright nasty things on the internet. I know it does not feel good to see those things written about us. Should SIU be creating a forum in which students can voice their opinions on the strike? Of course, and I hope that the "administration" is creating this opportunity--they have at least created a FAQ page.
However, I am challenged by the Chronicle's approach to the Facebook comment issue, saying that students are being censored (sometimes a dirty word)--after all, don't we all have the right to moderate the comments on our personal Facebook walls? Delete comments we don't like or don't want to see? As organizations don't we retain that same right? I believe that we do, and I'm not sure that SIU should be martyred for choosing to moderate what the public sees on its Facebook page. I feel that our institutions would likely take a similar path.
The students at SIU are the losers in this battle, and I hope they can return to the classroom soon.
Jill,
ReplyDeleteGood post. I think that you make an excellent point re. the use of the word 'censorship', and if this is really what's happening here. I went on the SIU Facebook page to check things out this morning. I saw that there were indeed numerous posts from students and from the community at large about the current issue with the negotiations, most of which are certainly far from positive about the institution. This makes me wonder:
1) Has SIU lightened up re. the moderation in light of the attention that it has gotten since the Chronicle and other media outlets have called attention to the so-called "censorship"?
OR
2) Has SIU been leaving the general comments alone (including the ones which are negative about the institution) and only removing the ones which are somehow personally charged, threatening, or otherwise beyond a general comment which voices an opinion about the current situation? I could see how some comments (which I did not see on the site...) could get into murky water re. a hostile work environment and/or other legal grounds in which the institution may be obligated to respond by removing the posts. Hmmmm... Will be interesting to see how this one plays out!
I think you bring up a solid point. As "authors" of a Facebook page, whether that represents one person or an institution, we do own the right to determine what is or isn't public knowledge on our wall/page.
ReplyDeleteAnyone, not just a flustered student, is capable of writing inappropriate comments on an open-access page. I can't determine which of these comments are being "censored," but I would hope that the comments that are being removed are being taken out for appropriate reasons (foul language, accusations, aggression, threats, etc.) and not because the FA simply don't like what these individuals have to say. I believe disagreements can be handled "fairly," so to speak. If one party has a strong opinion, they can express this is a mature objective fashion, and should be allowed to do so.
The other element present in this case is the institution as a whole. The authors of the SIU page have the charge of continually advertising the "pros" and benefits of the university to future prospective students and their families. I could see where a comment such as, "DON'T COME HERE, THESE PEOPLE ARE SELFISH AND GREEDY!" would be removed without haste. And, this is a right held by SIU.
A quick update, SIU announced today that the "administration" and the Faculty Association reached an agreement. The Faculty Association officially ended their strike and will return to the classroom this Thursday morning. http://chancellor.siuc.edu/pastmessages/2011_11_09.html
ReplyDeleteGreat post Jill! I really appreciate your counterpoint of being able to monitor and remove posts from a business or organization wall that are inappropriate. If our social media pages are being used to promote our programs and provide information about upcoming events, etc., I do believe that we have the right (and the responsibility) to monitor these pages. While I fully support First Amendment rights, if someone posts derogatory statements on our social media walls, isn't that akin to libel?
ReplyDeleteI recently had to ban a student from my office Facebook page, as he was using it for his own personal stuff, posting all kinds of pictures of himself, trying to put together social events, etc. It bordered a bit on the creepy side, but he persisted, despite several warnings.
I think this raises a larger conversation and Kylie you hit on it without directly raising the question. You are correct we can censor our pages however we like - so long as you can figure out what their recent "update" did with your settings! An individual has every right to maintain their social media as they like. Facebook's policy states that you have ownership over everything posted on your page... But should we feel comfortable exercising that right?
ReplyDeleteWhen an institution of higher learning adopts the practice of utilizing social media do they have an ethical obligation to their field to avoid practices which could limit democratic discourse? But is it "discourse" when it occurs on a social media site? Is is democratic when it doesn't happen in real time? How are we to tell? As much as it is coming into its own now, social media is still very much an unknown. It evolved so fast we really didn't have time to discuss the ethical considerations of using it and to formulate industry-wide customs and courtesies in dealing with it. What do we have for comparison?
IF a student is protesting the university on campus - do we take steps to quiet them? Do we engage them? Do we ignore them entirely? How do the same practices translate into a medium that is perhaps just as (if not more accessible), more permanent and less balanced?
David Dorr
Awesome post! The first thing that came to mind was who is assigned to monitoring the comments made on the post? Who determines if a comment is not worthy or too harsh to be on the "wall"? I would think that a solution may be for the university to have a statement on their page that outlines what comments are appropriate and what comments will be deleted from the page. Maybe they have already don e this!?!?
ReplyDeleteI agree that SIU has the right to control their Facebook page however they see fit. If students want to make a point they can use their personal page(s) to do so.
I'm going to respond to Matt's blog post that's actually a comment to this post. I think you make an interesting point about Facebook being a public forum. I've read a lot of case law on First Amendment issues over the past five years. Everything that I've read on public forums addresses in person issues. As we get the digital age, I'm curious to see what happens with freedom of speech issues.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to make the argument here that Facebook is not a public forum. Though any citizen (or spambot for that matter) can sign up for a profile, ultimately Facebook is a company that provides a service. We agreed to terms and conditions, and we do not own our own content no matter how much we like to think we do. Facebook technically owns everything we post. Though we retain the right to manage our own posts and profiles, it's a hard sell to call it a public forum for me.