> The Kansas Board of Regents just adopted a new social media policy, which allows Kansas state universities to fire (tenured and untenured) employees for “improper use” of social media. “Improper use” includes inciting violence (perhaps justifiable though potentially open to contentious interpretations), posting confidential information about students (fine) or posting things that are “contrary to the best interests of the university”
If the OP's summation is correct, then this is quite a curtailment. Keep in mind that it's not about the "reasonableness" of the rules, it's about the actual implementation and more importantly, the chilling effect. In America, how Supreme Court has made it so that the media has a considerable amount of leeway when it comes to publishing falsehoods. This sounds absurd, but in practice, it has allowed the press to be far more aggressive in its examination of public figures (whether they are best taking advantage of it is another debate)
Consider it this way: your company says engineers are allowed to brainstorm and implement features, unless those features end up causing an "unreasonable" amount of harm to the customers or to the company. Otherwise, just stick to maintaining legacy code and having meetings. What effect do you think that'll have on the engineering culture?
> Consider it this way: your company says engineers are allowed to brainstorm and implement features, unless those features end up causing an "unreasonable" amount of harm to the customers or to the company. Otherwise, just stick to maintaining legacy code and having meetings. What effect do you think that'll have on the engineering culture?
Depends on the field. In software, there's enough competition between companies for talented engineers, so some companies might offer "you're allowed to work on harmful projects" as a hiring perk/bonus, for some definition of "harmful" (for example, not directly profitable projects).
If the OP's summation is correct, then this is quite a curtailment. Keep in mind that it's not about the "reasonableness" of the rules, it's about the actual implementation and more importantly, the chilling effect. In America, how Supreme Court has made it so that the media has a considerable amount of leeway when it comes to publishing falsehoods. This sounds absurd, but in practice, it has allowed the press to be far more aggressive in its examination of public figures (whether they are best taking advantage of it is another debate)
Consider it this way: your company says engineers are allowed to brainstorm and implement features, unless those features end up causing an "unreasonable" amount of harm to the customers or to the company. Otherwise, just stick to maintaining legacy code and having meetings. What effect do you think that'll have on the engineering culture?