Dive Summary:
- California is the second state in two months, after Delaware, to pass a bill forbidding colleges from requiring students to grant access to their social media accounts.
- The California bill once again raises the question of how much control athletes, considered to be the public faces of many universities, have over their personal accounts, and it comes on the same week as the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville begin requiring athletes to install post-monitoring software on their accounts or lose their place on the team.
- The monitoring software alerts coaches when students post potentially damaging or embarrassing comments and is one approach that universities are using to keep a positive face on their athletics departments, while other universities, like the University of North Carolina at Chapel HIll, require athletes to "friend" an athletics department official on Facebook.
From the article:
California legislators last week sent a bill to the governor's desk that would prohibit colleges from requiring students to hand over access to their social media accounts, raising the re-emerging question of how much control athletes -- who are very much public faces of many universities -- should have over personal accounts that nonetheless are visible in the public domain. The California Senate passed the bill the same week the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville became the latest institutions to take flak on the issue, for requiring athletes to install software that monitors posts on their accounts or forfeit their spot on the team. ...