LUU free speech again

I didn’t think I’d have to write about this again but apparently I have to because there is still a problem with free speech in LUU, a bigger problem in fact than I had previously mentioned or even imagined. To cut a long story short and get onto the business end of discussing or ranting about the issue, this post has come about because of a blatant display of censorship by LUU.

Essentially a friend of mine posted a comment up on facebook about one of the specifics of the way the union was run, the information for which had come from one of their friends that worked in the union. Within a matter of hours of posting it my friend recieved a phone call from their LUU employed friend frantically requesting the message was removed because they feared they would lose their job. This wasn’t like it was a state secret of anything, just a piece of information.

This quite frankly disgusts me. This is a students union we are talking about here, not a military operation. We know more about what goes on inside Guantanamo Bay than we do about our own union. What is so f**king special about our union that they get to hush things up, hide things from students and threaten or at the very least appear to threaten the jobs of any employee who even speaks about how the union is run behind the scenes. We have a right to know – they use our money to fund themselves (a portion of our tuition fees goes on union funding) – so why aren’t they telling us or letting anyone tell us about what they are doing with our cash? Sounds like a huge conspiracy to me.

Well I’m not willing to stand for it anymore. While my post here is a big rant, there are some proactive things that you can do. I’m linking to this post from the top of my site to raise awareness and doing the things described in the bullet points below – I encourage you to do the same

  • Ask the union staff and the exec why they censor staff and its members
  • Request information from LUU about its activities, finances and affiliations in an attempt to prevent them hiding behind closed doors
  • Vote for people in union elections who stand for transparency and freedom of speech

 

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10 Comments

  1. Chris Worfolk Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 9:19 am

    But which would-be general student rep stands for such worthwhile values Kieran?

  2. Kieran Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 12:18 pm

    I’m sure you and anyone else for that matter is capable of reading the manifestos and asking questions of the candidates that will provide you with the answer you seek.

  3. Niall Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 1:48 pm

    All SUs want to censor students to some extent, usually when they’re preading rumours that aren’t true

  4. Kieran Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 3:24 pm

    Some people do spread rumours, but the standard response to such things in the world at large is denial rather than attempts at censorship.

    I do take what you are saying though. The problem is how do you know a given censorship is because the student is lying rather than the fact the student is saying something that is true but that the SU just doesn’t want people to hear…..

  5. James Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 10:45 pm

    Surely it really depends on what the information is? It is quite hard to pass judgement on whether the Union was right to censor in this situation as you have not revealed the all important thing that was said. Legal issues, false rumours and sensitive personal issues need to be kept under control by someone and the Union are best placed to do that. As aforementioned, without knowing the actual information I cannot pass any further comment.

  6. Kieran Said,

    March 7, 2007 @ 11:34 pm

    Thanks for all the comments folks, much appreciated and keep them coming.

    I know it doesn’t help the discussion but I don’t really want to post specifics because the individual who originally divulged the information has already requested not to be named in asking for the facebook message to be removed and so it just wouldn’t be right for me to go and re-post it here.

    However I will say that it would be something that if it was the UK government we were talking about rather than the SU then there would be a media frenzy and the public would demand answers.

    Following on from that anaology, the government would need a court order to stop something going to press, seemingly the SU feel they need no such thing to censor its members, so there is a disparity.

    I’m not saying there isn’t a single occasion when censorship wouldn’t be appropriate, but I am saying that freedom of the press and freedom of speech doesn’t exist for students of LUU in the same way it exists for members of the public in the UK, and for me that presents a problem.

    I accept my argument might be a rant, I accept that there may be flaws and exceptions to what I originally said and indeed what I am saying now, but the fact remains I have more rights to speak out about the UK government than my students union, and that just doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

    If someone would care to explain why that should be the case then I’d be happy to listen, but for me it just doesn’t wash in the slightest.

  7. Niall Said,

    March 8, 2007 @ 11:06 am

    Well if you disappear from the face of the planet in a few weeks time, we’ll know why! 😉

    Certainly as crew we were warned that we were not to spread rumours about certain union events being appalling, but I think that might have had more to do with the poor financial status of the union.

  8. Kieran Said,

    March 8, 2007 @ 4:47 pm

    Well if you disappear from the face of the planet in a few weeks time, we’ll know why! 😉

    LOL

    If I disappear be sure you send a search party to look for me in the union basement 😉

  9. Chris Worfolk’s Blog » Blog Archive » Corporate blogging Said,

    October 9, 2008 @ 5:47 pm

    […] But there you go, that is corporate blogging. End of the day I guess it is down to the company and it’s not like they are restricting what I can see elsewhere like Leeds University Union try to do. It just seems to make the whole idea of the blog a little pointless. […]

  10. Oli R Said,

    October 9, 2008 @ 10:34 pm

    I have to say after lsr.fm’s “free ticket” scam I’m not impressed with the union either!!!!!…. (they do make good pastys tho)

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