Social media monitors targeted

AUSTIN — An internet monitoring service deployed by two of the most lucrative university athletic programs in Texas to keep an eye on their athletes' social media use is in the cross hairs of a proposed state law.

The legislation would prohibit higher education institutions, public and private, from using the service, which critics have labeled “cyber stalking.”

The University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech University use companies that monitor each student athlete's personal social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube, according to contracts obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.

The schools require athletes to consent to and download the monitoring service for all such accounts. Texas A&M University did the same from 2008 until last year.

“We aren't big brother, we are big mother,” said Kevin Long, who founded a company called YouDiligence in 2008 and monitors about 3,500 student-athletes for about 20 universities nationwide, including Texas Tech. “We are (accessing their accounts) to take care of these guys, not to harm them.”

Texas Tech pays the firm $3,500 a year for services that include “monitoring of the publicly accessible and private areas” of social networking sites, requiring the school to provide the usernames of all athletes, according to its contract. A&M's contract with YouDiligence was for monitoring “public areas only,” for the same price.

The University of Texas contracts with a similar firm, Varsity Monitor. Its contract doesn't say if the monitoring includes private areas.

YouDiligence can automatically filter a student athlete's every post, using a 650-word list to determine if it is “inappropriate” and forwarding questionable posts to school officials, Long said. Profanity or words related to drugs, alcohol, race and sex dominate the list but some of the terms seem less obvious — such as “spider man,” “bell tower” and “Santorum.”

The company also sorts the words into risk levels — low, medium and high. Long said a focus group of college students helped develop the list and it can be customized with input from his clients.

Coaches and administrators can access students' profiles, including photos and videos, and can view a nonstudent's photo if a student athlete is “tagged” in it, Long said.

The idea that bad words could be ranked into categories was derided last year as “moral panic bingo” by Deadspin, a sports website owned by Gawker Media, after a New York Times story described the system.

House Bill 451 would ban universities from accessing current or prospective students' personal social media accounts. It would also ban requesting or requiring their user names and passwords — and requiring students to “add” officials on Facebook, an indirect approach some schools take.

Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, who filed HB 451, declined an interview request but said through a spokeswoman: “Employees and students should not feel compelled to divulge their social media login information.”

Student athletes almost always remove posts after they are flagged by the monitors. But if they don't, they meet with coaches to “discuss” the content, said Justin Paysinger, director of student athlete affairs at Texas Tech.

“We do it to protect our athletes,” he said.

And if the content is damaging to the team, the brand or the school, the athlete's playing time could be affected, Paysinger said.

Long calls the service “reputation management” and said many students don't realize a post to the internet can damage their future employment opportunities. His service doesn't violate freedom of expression, he said, since it does not prevent content from being published.

“There are a number of things that are required to be a member of the team, ranging from a curfew to drug tests, GPA requirements and practicing at inconvenient times,” Long said. “It's part of the agreement of being a student athlete that you follow the rules of the school. In my mind, this is no different than any one of those.”

Cody Davis, a senior Texas Tech football player, said the goal should be to protect the students rather than the school's brand but the monitoring allows universities to keep information or criticism out of public view.

“They restrict our voice, which can be good and bad,” said Davis, who said he uses social media frequently and has not been called on the carpet for any of his posts. “I don't think any of my teammates really like it, you know. No one wants to be monitored all the time.”

Plenty of players have been disciplined for posts, he said.

“Its insanity for a coach to want to track everything a student does online,” said Bradley Shear, a Maryland-based lawyer who specializes in internet law. “That's like bugging their dorm room. It's a clear violation of First and Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.”

Shear said the monitoring leaves the schools and the state open to lawsuits for data breach, liability, invasion of privacy and violation of constitutional rights.

Four other states have recently passed laws that would deter schools from monitoring students' personal accounts.

Laws in two of those states, Delaware and Colorado, don't directly ban his company's service, Long said, although he has no clients and “no longer markets” to schools there.

“It certainly appears the real purpose behind these policies is to advance the marketing interest of the institution,” said Geary Reamey, a law professor specializing in constitutional rights at Trinity University.

Reamey said the consent forms, if legally valid, provide some protection for the schools, which would have to prove they are acting for the educational purpose of the institution, he said.

“I'm not sure that's a winning argument,” Reamey said. “But not much precedent has been set on internet regulations.”

Besides A&M, Long said, Texas Southern University and Baylor University are former clients of YouDiligence.

Alan Cannon, associate athletic director for media relations at Texas A&M, said the school did not renew its YouDiligence services last year because “we are able to monitor quite a bit without entering into a contract.”

“We want to treat the student athletes like any other student at the university,” he said. “At some point you trust them to make good decisions.”

kparker@express-news.net