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[nowheresville]

I post a lot of (socially progressive, leftist) opinions on twitter. Recently, a couple of conservative politicians from my state followed me, because (probably stupidly) my profile identifies me as a professor at a state university. Should I be freaked out?

[scampster]

I post a lot of (socially progressive, leftist) opinions on twitter. Recently, a couple of conservative politicians from my state followed me, because (probably stupidly) my profile identifies me as a professor at a state university. Should I be freaked out?

I get followed by state politicians all the time. They are following their constituents. Hell, Karl Rove is following me. Perhaps they are following you with an agenda, but likely it is just some staffer following people from their state. Now if their follow list is 5 people and you are one of them, that might be something to be nervous about. But likely they are following hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

That being said, if you are posting as a professor with your university affiliation, you should at least have a notice somewhere that these opinions are yours and not reflective of your university or whatever. Personally, I feel like if you are going to label your professional affiliation on a twitter account, that you should post professionally. Keep the leftist opinions for a personal account.

[offthemarket]

Well, you will have the privilege of being their political tool.  They're probably waiting for something very extreme (in their bassackward opinion) to use in the right moment.

I agree that if you have a bunch of political stuff coming out of your twitter feed, that you probably shouldn't connect it with your public university job. Unless you're working in politics. It's not a matter of ethics, but it's just good sense to separate the personal from the professional.

If I write a letter to the editor about things in my community that don't pertain to my professional expertise, then I wouldn't identify myself as a professor, for example.

[larryc]

At the orientation training at my old school we were warned that, while we could do any legal thing we liked on our own time, when we did something at all possibly controversial we should make it clear we were acting as private citizens. So if we wanted to write a letter to the editor for instance we should not begin "As a professor at X University" or sign it with an institutional affiliation.

Take the institutional affiliation off your Twitter account and you should be bullet proof.

[seniorscholar]

A very long time ago, when I was a clerical worker in the office of my district's representative in the state's government (my profession at that time was PHT, if anyone is old enough to remember when doctoral students didn't even have stipends but had employed wives to "put hubby through"), my job was to collect and file information from all the local weekly newspapers in the district: letters to the editor, speeches at Rotary, birth announcements, police reports . . . anything that mentioned the name of a constituent. Sometimes, when a favor was asked by a constituent or when representative was to be seated with constituent at some public dinner, I was asked to fish out the file so representative could make friendly noises and not step on toes. Must be easier for low-level flunkies to follow Twitter feeds (though I never thought about that until scampster mentioned it) and feed them into computer files instead of using scissors and file folders.

[nowheresville]

Thank you all. Seniorscholar, that is the best case scenario for sure. The things I post are related to what I study, but I may have stepped over a line lately with a really unwise post or two. Arrrgghhh. Laying low, hoping for the best, and planning to take Larry C's advice as soon as it won't make me look like I think I'm guilty of something.

[cranefly]

I used to work for a politician. We kept a database of which constituents were ranting about which topics. The reason was that was a way to track what the "hot button" issues were in that constituency, how people felt about them, and what buttons to push when we contacted them (i.e. sent out mailings).  I'm guessing your state reps are doing them same.

We can't all tippy-toe around political issues. It's why we have the tenure system in the first place. We need to stand up and be a voice for those that don't have one.

[drnobody]

I wouldn't worry about it. My governor's office is following me. So is a state rep. Pretty standard for their staff. They get the pulse of their constituents that way. If you are really worried or don't want them following you, there's always the "protect my tweets" and block button. That's what I did (though I let the gov stay; we tend to agree politically) when I started working for a state institution. Our state says basically we just need the disclaimer about what we say being our own opinions.

[mended_drum]

At the orientation training at my old school we were warned that, while we could do any legal thing we liked on our own time, when we did something at all possibly controversial we should make it clear we were acting as private citizens. So if we wanted to write a letter to the editor for instance we should not begin "As a professor at X University" or sign it with an institutional affiliation.

Take the institutional affiliation off your Twitter account and you should be bullet proof.

It seems to work the opposite way at my SLAC.  Everyone identifies our institution when doing something public, perhaps particularly when it has the potential to be embarrassing.  Of course, we're small and private, so maybe the idea is that all publicity for us is good publicity. 

[fiona]

I would delete the professional affiliation immediately. In my state, legislators check on such things and decide they'd like to not fund universities or programs where professors express certain controversial opinions.

Have the opinions, but do not give the right wing politicians the opportunity to see you as an example of what they loathe.

It could really cost you and your colleagues.

The Fiona