The six-day faculty strike at Southern Illinois University (SIU) came to an end Thursday, but the ordeal brought a new issue to light: censorship on Facebook.

Students posted questions and other comments pertaining to the strike while it was happening, only to have their comments deleted by SIU’s Facebook administrators, according to an article in the SIU student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian.

SIU spokesperson Rod Sievers said administrators did not go on the page to delete comments only pertaining to the strike. Sievers said due to the strike, the page had gotten numerous comments that Sievers described as “profane and over the top.” A mediator was assigned to take down all comments that were considered such but found there were too many of them.

“[The mediator] got overwhelmed by all the comments,” Sievers said. “We decided to just shut it down, [which] deleted everything, until we could regroup.”

NIU students do not have to worry about a similar issue occurring on the NIU Facebook page, said Holly Nicholson, NIU social media specialist.

“It is our policy to allow conversation, whether positive or negative, to occur,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson said NIU maintains certain guidelines and will remove any comments that break these guidelines.

“We do maintain the right of removing content that violates Facebook’s terms of service, as well as our posting guidelines and social media policy,” Nicholson said. “We provide social media guidelines for our faculty and staff, as well. That is certainly applicable to students and the entire NIU community.”

Some SIU students wondered if this was a violation of the First Amendment even though it was an accident, but NIU Law Professor Mark Cordes said this can be seen as a violation of the First Amendment or it can be seen as perfectly legal depending on how the court would view a Facebook page. Cordes said in one case, a court might consider Facebook as a limited public forum created by the university.

“In such a situation, once the forum is created, then [the university] cannot censor comments based on their viewpoints,” Cordes said. “They can delete lewd or obscene comments, but not comments they don’t like.”

In another view, Cordes said a court could consider a Facebook page as an extension of the university itself.

“Under this view, the university can discriminate, since it has a right to decide which viewpoints it wants to express,” Cordes said. “They would essentially be acting as editor of a government publication, with the Facebook page as simply a more modern equivalent of other forms of publications the university might use, such as printed materials.”

While SIU students were upset that their comments were deleted, other students, like Erica Davis, freshman film studies and production major at SIU, said she feels that SIU was right in its decision.

“I felt like people have the right to say what they want, but there is a time and place for everything,” Davis said. “Saying it on Facebook is just going to make it worse and start another controversy.”

Sievers said it was an accident that comments with no profanity were deleted and students were blocked from the Facebook page. Students are free to discuss the strike if they wish, he said.

“It has been back up since Monday, and it has been a very civil discussion, which is what we wanted,” Sievers said.The six-day faculty strike at Southern Illinois University (SIU) came to an end Thursday, but the ordeal brought a new issue to light: censorship on Facebook.

Students posted questions and other comments pertaining to the strike while it was happening, only to have their comments deleted by SIU’s Facebook administrators, according to an article in the SIU student newspaper, the Daily Egyptian.

SIU spokesperson Rod Sievers said administrators did not go on the page to delete comments only pertaining to the strike. Sievers said due to the strike, the page had gotten numerous comments that Sievers described as “profane and over the top.” A mediator was assigned to take down all comments that were considered such but found there were too many of them.

“[The mediator] got overwhelmed by all the comments,” Sievers said. “We decided to just shut it down, [which] deleted everything, until we could regroup.”

NIU students do not have to worry about a similar issue occurring on the NIU Facebook page, said Holly Nicholson, NIU social media specialist.

“It is our policy to allow conversation, whether positive or negative, to occur,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson said NIU maintains certain guidelines and will remove any comments that break these guidelines.

“We do maintain the right of removing content that violates Facebook’s terms of service, as well as our posting guidelines and social media policy,” Nicholson said. “We provide social media guidelines for our faculty and staff, as well. That is certainly applicable to students and the entire NIU community.”

Some SIU students wondered if this was a violation of the First Amendment even though it was an accident, but NIU Law Professor Mark Cordes said this can be seen as a violation of the First Amendment or it can be seen as perfectly legal depending on how the court would view a Facebook page. Cordes said in one case, a court might consider Facebook as a limited public forum created by the university.

“In such a situation, once the forum is created, then [the university] cannot censor comments based on their viewpoints,” Cordes said. “They can delete lewd or obscene comments, but not comments they don’t like.”

In another view, Cordes said a court could consider a Facebook page as an extension of the university itself.

“Under this view, the university can discriminate, since it has a right to decide which viewpoints it wants to express,” Cordes said. “They would essentially be acting as editor of a government publication, with the Facebook page as simply a more modern equivalent of other forms of publications the university might use, such as printed materials.”

While SIU students were upset that their comments were deleted, other students, like Erica Davis, freshman film studies and production major at SIU, said she feels that SIU was right in its decision.

“I felt like people have the right to say what they want, but there is a time and place for everything,” Davis said. “Saying it on Facebook is just going to make it worse and start another controversy.”

Sievers said it was an accident that comments with no profanity were deleted and students were blocked from the Facebook page. Students are free to discuss the strike if they wish, he said.

“It has been back up since Monday, and it has been a very civil discussion, which is what we wanted,” Sievers said.