One little change

I don't know the full story here, but apparently someone somewhere on my campus encouraged students to visit their personal book-of-faces page, like them, and as it turned out, that page had political opinions on it which at least one student didn't share, they complained to their parent, the parent complained to the university, and so now anyone with a university-branded social-media site (which this is NOT) is expected to register.

I try to anonymize here and I try especially not to name names. But do be aware these are only my opinions and not those of my workplace. In fact, I'm sure sometimes my opinions run counter to the official workplace opinion.

So far, they're asking 'branded' sites on FB, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest to register. I assume non-branded sites aren't, so for now I'm keeping my Twitter account, but if they get more forceful, that may just go away, because I don't like having to feel like I'm walking on eggshells on Twitter (heh).

No mention of Ravelry, probably as it's under the radar and I only know of one other person here who is on. No mention of blogs, though I suspect logoed blogs have already been registered.

And yeah, I understand their concern: It is actually illegal for a public university to be appearing to endorse a particular political position* or candidate. And they want to protect their image, that is their right.

(*Well, maybe other than, "Reducing funding for state universities leads to big problems in how those universities manage to deliver instruction." Heh)

I mean: We are still allowed, if we choose, to write letters to the editor but we cannot claim to do it on behalf of the entire university (which just seems commonsensical to me). And I didn't realize people were using the logos and stuff other than on official uni websites - I thought that was illegal.

Anyway. I like my gig a lot even if there are problems with higher ed in the US at the moment, and I don't want to do anything that upsets anyone or violates a rule. So I put a tiny clarification up on the header in case anyone who knows where I work is reading this. I mean, I think it's clear I'm not any kind of official spokesperson, but still.

(The world we live in. Offering extra credit for someone "liking" your FB page? Makes me face-palm.)