OSU's Facebook posting ban upsets grad student

After Ohio State banned all wall posts on its Facebook page last week following negative comments from a graduate student, it has decided to allow any comment on its page.

Mark Stickle, a 55-year-old graduate student in history, noticed last week an advertisement on OSU's Web site promoting President E. Gordon Gee's green initiatives. Earlier that week, however, he had found out about Gee's position on the board of directors of Massey Energy Co., whose coal-mining practices have drawn the ire of environmentalists.

On March 30 or March 31, he posted a "somewhat sarcastic comment" about Gee's initiatives, Stickle said. Someone from the university replied in about three hours, he said. The next day, he sent "a little more poignant message, but I didn't say anything confrontational or judgmental," Stickle said. His message asked if someone could help him understand the link between Gee's service with Massey Energy and his commitment to building a green university. Again, he received a Facebook message in about three hours, but this time it requested Stickle call a university official. The message, sent March 31 from Ted Hattemer, OSU's director of New Media, said: "I'm taking down your comment from the Ohio State University Facebook page. We can talk about it when you give me a call."

Stickle didn't feel it was necessary to call, and such censorship angered him. He posted another message that evening, which he says contained no profanity or threats.

"I said something to the effect of, 'Students considering studying at Beijing University but want oppression close to home should consider Ohio State,' " he said. Stickle's friend then posted a link to an advocacy group against Massey Energy and didn't write anything other than 'this is worth reading,' Stickle said. Within hours, both of the posts were removed and on April 1, the page was locked from further comments from anyone, not just Stickle.

Stickle was shocked at the total ban of comments based on what he thought were legitimate questions.

"Free speech, as long as it's respectful, nobody should be afraid of it," he said. "Even more than football that's what a university should be about."

Stickle discussed the matter with his adviser in the History Department, professor John Brooke.

"I felt, and various members of the department felt, this was a First Amendment issue," Brooke said. "I spoke with various parties in the administration, mostly to suggest that they take this issue seriously."

Stickle and Brooke made calls to investigate the free speech issue, and Stickle said that last Friday there were meetings with communication, legal and other staff members.

"After they made the total ban, the individual who I spoke to said at that point he had assumed that Facebook was university property, that it was a marketing tool, but our consultation with the lawyers' office found that wasn't the case - it was a public forum," Brooke said.

Then, "there was a furious amount of backpedaling," Stickle said. He had repeatedly asked what the university's policy was toward censorship on Facebook, and Friday afternoon received an e-mail from Melinda Swan, associate vice president for University Communications. "We have not created a written formal policy regarding postings on Ohio State's Facebook site. As you likely know, one of the challenges of continuously changing communications technologies is simply keeping pace with new developments," Swan wrote in the e-mail. She added that the university's Facebook page - which had more than 22,000 fans as of Wednesday evening - would now be open to his and anyone else's comments.

University spokesman Jim Lynch admits that the issue wasn't handled appropriately, but that the situation was fixed swiftly.

"It wasn't appropriate so he contacted us and we said to him, 'Hey, we might not have acted appropriately, so we offered to explain,' " Lynch said. Facebook didn't allow organizations to use the wall feature until March 9, he said, and "these changes opened up new possibilities for us and we may not have responded appropriately at first."

Stickle, a retired bank executive who is pursuing his doctorate on the history of 19th century mortgage practices, said he received a supportive e-mail from a student who writes for the official Buckeye Blog. "He sent me an e-mail and said, 'Anything I tried to post that didn't paint OSU as a place where people had things other then white teeth and sunshine' wasn't put up," Stickle said. In one of the blog posts, the student mentioned cutting class, and "they zapped him because they didn't want to put out the idea that OSU was that kind of school," Stickle said.

On midday Wednesday, Stickle posted a comment on the Facebook page critical of the new main library. While pleased that the page is open again, the original lack of a policy on the issue still irks him.

"When it comes to free speech ... the university ought to let it happen," he said. "I could write that policy in 10 minutes."