Tuesday, on Penn State’s Facebook page, fans were informed of policies that prohibit any political advocation for Board candidates, yet in their own comments unintentionally called the Board “horrible”.

The original status that led to this interesting social media error was posted earlier in the day:

“Lions, our page policies prohibit politicking and campaigning. This includes posts from candidates for Penn State’s Board of Trustees.”

This sets an interesting precedent that censors the discussion about Board members to some degree, but I doubt it will be a problem to discuss anything else Penn State related on that page. Oh gee, what could possibly be the reason the Penn State page would have policies to prevent information from being spread?

The situation gets better, though; whoever was managing the Penn State page commented to viewers (without thinking, we assume) “You can TALK about the horrible board all you want.  Just don’t campaign for it on our page, please.”

This was in response to a comment from a fan of the page which read: “Boy that’s ironic isn’t it. They don’t want u talking bout the horrible board!”

That comment by the Penn State moderator obviously had to be deleted. Who would even say that? I’m not surprised to see that though, considering the awesome PR that Penn State has had recently.

They corrected it, so now it says “You may TALK about the board all you want. Just don’t campaign for it on our page, please.”

So people can talk about the Board or its nominees, as long as no one is campaigning for it? What’s the difference? Any way that someone expresses an opinion about the Board or its nominees, it still implicitly supports a political view…

It’s just one more step to make sure that new candidates have a harder time making it into the public eye. No worries though; there is an alternative university website that consolidates all the information to make it easier for alumni to make sound decisions during the next election…  Wait, actually, no. There isn’t.

Oh, well.

I think everyone should take advantage of the fact that the discussion of the Board is still free game. I wonder whether, if enough people started expressing their opinions, these “policies” would come in and prevent further discussion. That would be a pretty sound indicator of its integrity…