Student Rights, Rules and Responsibilities: Student Social Media Policy

Relevant Excerpt

Guidelines: Students are expected:

1. To be respectful, careful, responsible and accountable for their use of social media. A student’s right to make a statement does not mean that the speech has no consequences in terms of impact on others, judgments made about the speaker by third parties, or the impact on future employers.

...

Policy:
1. The University may, but does not regularly monitor the language and/or actions of students on public social media platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. However, while the University will defer to the user policies of the individual social medium, it will hold students accountable for reported related Code of Student Behavior violations. Students may not use social media to:

a. to commit discriminatory harassment, ...
b. Post messages that threaten another, Art. III.3.b, incite imminent lawless action, Art. III, 17, or are otherwise unlawful harassment, Art. III.3.c, are defamatory or otherwise unlawful, Art. III.12.
c. Claim or imply that they are speaking on behalf of the University.
d. Intentionally inflict emotional distress on others.
e. Violate any provision of the Acceptable Use Policy, OLPM UNH. VI.F.5.6, the Student Code of Conduct or provision of state or federal law.

2. The University recognizes that social media behavior is entitled to extensive protections under the First Amendment. The University guarantees and protects the speech rights of students. This policy will be interpreted with those protections in mind.