Twittergate, as I am so lovingly-yet-unoriginally naming this series of unfortunate events, is all the talk on campus and especially on social media. If you go to Geneseo, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about, but in case you don’t, here is a CliffsNotes version.
A Geneseo student, sophomore Isaiah Kelly, created a parody Twitter account that looked very similar to SUNY Geneseo’s own Twitter account to “poke fun and make light of the various issues we have on campus,” like the asbestos-linked Milne Library closure and, most recently, the North Campus power outage. Kelly says that he “was really only aiming for students to see the tweets.” Sometime on Wednesday Feb. 5, Geneseo gained access to the Twitter account through Twitter itself and proceeded to dramatically alter the account; at no point was Kelly notified by either Twitter or the college. After he began to theorize that the school went into his school email to gain access to the Twitter account, Geneseo released a lengthy Twitter thread emphasising that this was not the case. On Thursday, Kelly was handed back his account to find it suspended by Twitter according to their impersonation policy. However, nowhere in this policy does it state that access to an impersonating account will be granted to the person or institution being impersonated. When asked about the reasoning behind this action by Business Insider, Twitter spokesperson Aly Pavel said, “We are still investigating what happened here … That said, the school should not have been provided access to this account.”
Now that we’re all caught up, I thought this whole brouhaha could serve as a way to talk about meme and satire social media accounts. If you are a Geneseo student, you probably know of at least a few. Maybe you even run one! But in light of this conundrum, I wanted to talk about parody and satire rights and how to keep yourself safe while exercising your right to expression about the college you attend—or any entity, in fact.
1. Use personal email addresses for each of your accounts.
Even if you have to start making random gmail accounts for your satire or meme pages, please do not use your school email! When asked what he would say to other students who run meme or satire pages about the school, Isaiah Kelly had one piece of advice.
“Don’t use your school email. Laws and legality are cloudy when it comes to school-owned domains.”
The college insists that they did not go into Kelly’s email account to access his Twitter, but the school still can access your email and any of your accounts within the Geneseo G Suite. So, as a general rule of thumb, don’t do, say, or make anything on your school accounts that you wouldn’t want someone from the school looking at if they are performing a formal investigation—one of the only instances Geneseo says they will look into a student’s account.
2. Don’t use official logos or trademarks without significantly altering them—or simply don’t use them at all.
One of the reasons the college gave for the Twitter account crossing the line of parody into impersonation was that “[i]t used the college’s actual name and trademark design without alteration,” according to Geneseo’s Twitter thread.
That means any company’s designs, including Geneseo’s, should be significantly altered to not only distinguish oneself from the official school account, (failure to do so is technically a civil offense), but also to protect yourself and your account under Fair Use Law. In fact, it may be better to be safe than sorry and not use them at all.
It is also recommended that you mention somewhere in your account title and/or your bio that you are not an official account, and that your account is satire, commentary or parody. In fact, many of the meme accounts on Instagram about the school have begun to leave disclaimer saved stories that say this exactly as a result of “Twitter-Gate.”
3. Double check the rules of your platform!
For example, Twitter has a specific policy regarding parody accounts that outlines what one should do with their account to make it clear that it is not an impersonation. There are similar policies on Instagram regarding fair use and using copyrighted material. Please make sure you are following protocol so that you can continue to spread your humor and joy across a population of over-tired, overworked students who just want to take a warm shower without having to walk to Central Campus to shower at their friends’ dorms.
This situation serves as a great catalyst to the discussion of protections for satire, commentary, parody and meme accounts of institutions. Stay safe and keep producing satire, people! You know who you are …