In light of Monday’s cover story, “Football players delete Twitter accounts at risk of suspension,” I wanted to share new developments in consideration of issues of online and social media privacy and censorship in college athletics and journalism.

Within a day of The Towerlight’s publication, social media news website Mashable released an article titled “Should athletes have social media privacy? One bill says yes.”

Senate Bill 434 would “prohibit institutions from requiring a student or an applicant for admission to provide access to a personal account or service through an electronic communications device.” This includes sharing usernames, passwords and unblocking private accounts.

TU’s strict social media policy wasn’t a jumping off point for this case. The bill’s author, Bethesda, Md., lawyer Bradley Shear, used the murder of University of Virginia lacrosse player and Catonsville native Yeardly Love as an example.

UVA may have risked legal liability for Love’s murder, had they been monitoring the social media accounts of Love’s boyfriend George Huguely, who played for the men’s lacrosse team and is currently standing trial for her death.

If those monitoring athletes’ social media accounts hadn’t picked up on potentially threatening or violent posts, UVA could have been charged with negligence.

But as The Towerlight reported, student athletes aren’t the only closely watched social media users.

On Tuesday, United Kingdom-based broadcaster Sky News told its reporters they aren’t allowed to Tweet about their personal lives, post about beats outside those they cover for Sky, or ReTweet other journalists or individual users, as they are seen as “competition.”

While the British Broadcasting Company is funded through licensing fees charged to every television owner in the U.K., digital cable through Sky is paid through user subscriptions and advertising revenue.

The inherent bias of advertising must already be compensated for, and guidelines that keep journalists from being transparent to their audience will only turn more viewers away from the news.
In both cases, those most involved with these issues are the ones without a voice. Journalists can’t publish their opinions, and many athletes, Towson’s included, aren’t allowed to discuss decisions made by administrators.

Therefore, we encourage The Towerlight’s online comment box as means to give a voice to the voiceless. Through online anonymity, those affected can freely share their thoughts and personal experiences as part of the discussion. We will print comments in the Opinion section of The Towerlight as we follow and develop these stories.