Is Social Media Commentary Next?

In a ruling that should catch the attention of all employees of state agencies, a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that former Georgia State psychologists didn't have a case against their employer over a memo they wrote critical of a policy change and reorganization of their student services clinic.  Inside Higher Ed's story has this key passage:

A district court found, and the appeals court affirmed, that the memo the psychologists wrote was "employee speech" related to their duties and thus not protected by the First Amendment.

Keep in mind, this was a memo to the employer.  Point being, if they'd decided they weren't getting a hearing internally and took to social media, would they have had more - or less -- First Amendment standing?

Well Intentioned, but Dangerous

The Chronicle notes today the petition of over 70 groups to require colleges and universities to address the anonymous harassment from sites such as YikYak.

The key in the story:  failure to monitor anonymous social media and to pursue online harassers as a violation of federal civil-rights laws guaranteeing equal educational access.

YikYak in particular, and most social websites in general, do not provide the level of anonymity promised, particularly when the free speech crosses the line into terroristic threatening or other legal areas (fake bomb/violence threats).  Neighboring student at UCA becoming the latest to learn that lesson the handcuffs way.

However, to require universities -- or public agencies in general -- to be the police of the internet is at best futile and at worst draconian.

By no measure do I condone or lessen the real issue here -- I've seen it up close.  Does this extend to RateMyProfessor reviews?  Does it include message boards like Topix -- the ancestral cesspool of these mobile-enabled platforms like 4chan and YikYak?

We are asking our universities to become larger and larger police agencies.  I might add, an unfunded mandate of the first degree.

This is a "Dear Colleague" with the best of intentions, but it will be little more than the Internet Monitoring Full Employment Act if pushed to its conclusion.

Soak It In

One last bit of data from the Pew Research Center's report on where generations get and from whom they trust their political news.  The graphic says it all:

Because That's Where the Recruits Are

So why do we strategically spend time placing our news in social media formats?  Because studies continue to show that millennials find their news in social media, and contrary to the Twitterati's over-attachment with their platform and news, more millennials find news in Facebook.

You can read the Pew Research Center report that is behind this and many traditional news stories recently at this link.  Something to keep in mind, this was by brand, not "social media".  Twitter, for example, had about the same usage across generations.  It was Facebook -- the one that "none of the kids" are on any more -- that had the generational shift.

Why?

My theory:  It's their internet.  The Gen X grew up with websites, and they live in the domain name world.  The Boomers tuned to a channel, either over the air or on cable.

But the Millennials?  Just like they wouldn't begin to know how to use an 8-track, they grew up inside social media.  Sure, they socialize more on the newer mobile platforms -- Snapchat, InstaGram, etc. -- but they get their information from their reference point.

I've argued for some time that websites are now used as almanacs, the Wikis of our enterprises, because no one uses a printed reference anymore.  News doesn't come in a paper, it arrives in email or social.

That's not to say we don't use all our operative platforms, but the old Willie Sutton meme reigns supreme here:  because that is where they are.

Limits of Academic Freedom

Regardless of where you land on the spectrum of what is protected speech, today's Chronicle article is a solid primer in the recent cases where professors got into trouble.  Pay special attention to the case of a student who recorded a classroom exchange.