Seven North Carolina Universities Employed Social Media-Monitoring Programs

Seven North Carolina universities employed social media-monitoring packages on their college students, WRAL reported.

A report from the Dallas Morning Information discovered that seven North Carolina universities have used social media monitoring in current years: North Carolina State College; the College of North Carolina Chapel Hill; East Carolina College; North Carolina A&T College; the College of North Carolina Asheville; Duke College; and Wake Forest College.

Information present the colleges at one time contracted with Social Sentinel to watch social media.

“The College makes use of Social Sentinel to establish threatening or regarding public social media posts surrounding occasions and campus actions that require campus public security,” UNC-Chapel Hill mentioned in a press release. “The College doesn’t use the service to watch scholar e-mail. The useful resource is an trade greatest observe, solely makes use of public info and doesn’t gather personal private info. The College coordinates with and depends on help from state and federal regulation enforcement companies when applicable as a way to guarantee campus security.”

Social Sentinel has a database of phrases it searches for.

At NC A&T, each day alerts with flagged social media posts had been despatched to a campus worker. Emails revealed two situations the place campus police and counselors had been alerted to seek out and assist a scholar coping with psychological well being points.

Social Sentinel can scan scholar e-mail accounts. However public data noticed by WRAL Investigates discovered no proof North Carolina faculties participated, and the Dallas Morning Information report additionally discovered no indicators of faculty e-mail scanning in a number of states.