University Bans Social Media, Political Content and Wikipedia Pages On Dorm WiFi

Free Speech

My understanding is that there was once a theory that America’s public universities were havens of free speech, political thought, and a center for the exchange of ideas. I must admit that this seems foreign to me. I’ve always experienced universities primarily as a group-think center mostly centered around college athletics. That said, if universities want to still claim to be at the forefront of idea and thought, they probably shouldn’t be censoring the hell out of what their students can access on the internet.

Yet, as btr1701 writes in about, that’s exactly what Northern Illinois University appears to be doing.

Northern Illinois University enacted an Acceptable Use Policy that goes further than banning torrents, also denying students access to social media sites and other content the university considers “unethical” or “obscene.” A discussion on the ban was brought to Reddit by user darkf who discovered the new policy while trying to access the Wikipedia page for the Westboro Baptist Church from his personal computer in his dorm room. The student received a filter message categorizing the page as “illegal or unethical.” It seems possible to continue to the webpage, but the message warns that all violations will be reviewed.

While sites that only potentially violate the policy, such as the Wikipedia page for stupidest church in America, are still accessible after the warning, other sites that NIU has deemed offensive, defamatory, or threatening remain. These, oddly, include pornography sites, for some reason. It also includes social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIN, the latter of which seems like an especially odd choice since it’s primarily a job networking site and I’d think that would be the kind of thing a university would want their students to be doing. Granted, this usage policy applies to staff as well as students, but that’s the entire problem with a catchall filtering system like this: you block too much good along with the “bad.”

But where this really goes off the rails is NIU’s apparent attempt to stifle political discussion on their campus.

Perhaps one of the most controversial of the terms is the restriction on political activities such as surveying, polling, material distribution, vote solicitation and organization or participation in meetings, rallies and demonstrations, among other activities…Isn’t it obvious that an institute of higher learning should be the last place to put a huge block in the information pathway?

It’s not just obvious, it seems like the antithesis of what a public university ought to be doing. Forget the social media and pornography sites for a moment. Turning the filters up to the point when Wikipedia pages are blocked is insane. That site is a go to resource for, well, everyone, but probably especially for students. And the ban on political activism and traffic suggests NIU is turning a blind-eye to the important role that universities have always played in political thought and activism.

Shame on NIU for trying to strangle the internet access their students rely on as they learn and become adults.

Filed Under: filters, free speech, universities
Companies: niu, northern illinois university