A week ago all the buzz on campus circulated around an email sent out by the college concerning social media. The email stated the Florida Southern College has adopted a new social media policy.
Some may wonder where this stemmed from, but many have first-hand experience with FSC related social media accounts. Whether you have been a target, a poster or just a reader the majority of this campus has seen one of the many FSC themed social media accounts.
It has become apparent that FSC faculty has seen them also. It is not often that staff decides to intervene in the lives of students, but when it starts to involve the college itself the more notice is taken.
It could have been a number of things that got faculty’s attention, student complaints, parent complaints or even a Southern staff writers article on the issue. Whatever got their attention The Southern staff is grateful for.
We are all about freedom of speech. Hence the fact that we write for a newspaper, but there are lines that just shouldn’t be crossed.
Sure, there are some posts on pages such as FSC Narps and FSC Superlatives that are funny and light-hearted. Others are downright hurtful and demeaning.
A basic rule to go by with social media is if it doesn’t benefit the public or doesn’t qualify as public interest, don’t post it. It’s disturbing that we live in a society where we feel the need to bring each other down via social media.
The email sent out is very careful to not name any specific accounts and is conservative in nature, but we all got the hint: stop making sites where we bash each other and our school.
You don’t even have to read the actual copy of the policy to know that the college is serious about this initiative. Social media accounts concerning the college have been occurring for years, but recently they have taken a new turn, which was apparently serious enough to spark a policy.
Because FSC is a private college it is are allowed to enact whatever policies they would like, which on the student bodies case can be harmful or beneficial. In this case we would have to agree with the benefit.
The policy states that you cannot use the College’s names, likeness or logo, which basically means absolutely nothing pertaining to FSC should exsist. This is a bold and positive move.
We do not need this accounts in exsistence. They are unnesecary and do more harm than good. There is already enough negativity in the world for people to have to worry about being bashed on social media.
The new social media policy is indeed one of the best decisions that FSC has made in awhile.
