With confession Web sites, for example, institutions could block access for students connected to the campus network. The institution is therefore unable to use East Carolina’s strategy, said Annette Hacker, a spokeswoman for the university.Įnforcement may become an even less viable alternative as students continue to move away from Web sites and toward apps. Other unofficial accounts, such as iastate_snaps at Iowa State University, don’t use any university branding. Once a user has had an account removed or suspended, she said, they are prohibited from creating new accounts. “Spread the word & follow the backup account -> ecunationsnaps.”Ī Snapchat spokeswoman, speaking on background, said accounts such as the ones created at East Carolina may violate the company’s terms of use and community guidelines. “We got shut down again,” the account tweeted last week. The ECUNation Twitter account has treated the university’s attempts to stifle it with indifference. “It’s the flashlight on the wall that you pin down and it keeps moving.” “The downside to that is that a new one will just open up,” Stansbury said. After a recent appeal to Snapchat’s legal team, the company deactivated one of the accounts within 48 hours, Stansbury said. Since the users behind the ECUNation Snapchat account altered East Carolina’s logo - a pirate - to use as its profile picture, the university has been able to use trademark law to request the account be taken down. You guys are in control of what is sent in to our account. “ECU Nation is what the ECU student body makes it. “My advice: Don't put your face in snaps that involve illegal activities,” the account recommended in January. Compared to other unofficial university Twitter accounts that aggregate Snapchat messages, it is relatively tame (though comments retweeted by the account often refer to pictures featuring drugs and nudity). “It impacts every school.”Įast Carolina has since November seen Snapchat messages posted to the Twitter profile ECUNation. “For universities and colleges, their image is put on display, and perception is built not on what a university is like, but what people see in social media,” Stansbury said. In addition to the legal questions the accounts pose for the pictured students, colleges and universities also see the accounts as potentially detrimental to their recruitment efforts. Since colleges and universities can ask Snapchat to shut down those accounts, the messages are sometimes reposted to other social media platforms such as Twitter, which can alert followers to new Snapchat accounts - and so the cycle continues. Some students are taking advantage of those loopholes to make Snapchat messages last even longer than intended, sending pictures and videos to unofficial college accounts that aggregate them for every follower to see. A handful of third-party apps, not condoned by Snapchat, allow recipients to save messages without the sender noticing. Users can set messages to disappear after a specific number of seconds, but the timer only starts ticking once the recipient opens the message - and unread messages are stored on Snapchat’s servers for 30 days. Although the app’s selling point has been its ephemeral messages - a feature that can make users more willing to send messages with drug use and nudity - there are several exceptions to that rule. Snapchat, the smartphone messaging app that lets users send one another pictures and video clips that disappear once they have been viewed, is the latest in a string of Web sites and apps on the agenda for university employees who deal with student conduct. “The challenge is there are so many different options out there.” “You try to be proactive as an institution,” said Chris Stansbury, executive director of marketing and communications for student affairs at East Carolina University.
To avoid wasting time on combing through the Internet for student code violators, some institutions are instead focusing their efforts on educating the campus about responsible social media use and giving students a say in how their institution should be portrayed online. Keeping an eye on students on Snapchat and other online platforms presents a “moving target” for colleges and universities, administrators say - shut down one account, and another will appear in its place.
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