QMU denies monitoring students' Facebook activities

Following the dismissal of Queen Margaret University Students' Union president Blain Murphy, students have expressed concerns regarding whether what they post online is logged by the university.

A confidential email, sent by accident to the entire QMU student body by a union spokesperson, stated that they wished to get a statement out as soon as possible regarding the dismissal, “as a student had already started commenting on [Blain Murphy’s] Facebook.”

The email also contained a first draft of a press release regarding the reasons behind Mr Murphy's dismissal, allegedly due to unfulfillment of his responsibilities.

Since then, many students have posted comments on the university’s Facebook page. PR and Marketing student Fergus Boden asked: “How did the university find out about a student comment on his personal Facebook site?”

Another student posted: “I wouldn’t mind [the university] announcing how it happened. Someone asked on the uni’s Facebook page how they found out and if they had someone watching our Facebooks, but they ignored it.”

Responding to this, marketing officer Joanna Murray said she had personally replied to the question, but that the reply had disappeared.

She added: “To confirm, it is no-one’s job at QMU to monitor students’ Facebook profiles. They are your own personal business. I control the QMU page by making and responding to posts on the QMU Facebook page and that’s it.”

When specifically asked by The Journal if they monitor students’ Facebook activities, a QMU spokesperson released the following statement, but did not answer the actual question:

“Queen Margaret University has a substantial number of computers and allocated space for students to use on a 24 hour basis at its modern campus. Because of this, the University has not yet experienced a situation where students using computers for social networking are not competing with those using them for academic work. Computer usage has, to date, never reached 100 per cent and students can access a system which clearly shows them where available computers are located.

“QMU recognises that students, in general, tend to spend a significant amount of time using social networking tools. However, rather than the institution finding this to be a problem, QMU has made great efforts to embrace social networking, particularly Facebook, as a method of communicating with students.”

Blain Murphy said, in a comment to The Journal regarding the confidential email, that the issue of students feeling monitored by the university is "a huge subject in itself".

He added: "Students should be able to say what they want on their Facebooks without fear that a member of staff from the union or the university is constantly watching what's being said."