How Albright College Failed Social Media 101!

Being a recent graduate of Albright college I was really excited to see that the college has decided to implement a social media stratagy to help connect current, past and future students together.  Albright Faces is a social network (powered by Ning) which carries all the same standard functionality that you'll find in any store bought social networking software like phpfox, or the like. The social network has been up for a while with heavy promotion from the college but doesn't seem to grow like you think it would. It was only after I added my profile that I found out why.

I signed up with my student name and information and quickly built a profile with my background, interests,  academic track and employer. Under the blog section I linked to my webtalent blog. I also uploaded an introductory video that WebTalent produced introducing me and what I do at WebTalent. I even contributed to the blog community by writing about how my college degree from Albright has helped me grow my company. It wasn't self serving and thought it to be more inspriational that anything else. With the profile compelted (which took a couple hours to do) I logged out.  Within 24 hours I received notice that I had been suspended from the community.

This is one of the basic premises for building a succesful engaging community. You dont police, you let the community police themselves. Now obviously there are limits but mentioning a company name on the profile should be one of them. Social media censhorship is common is countries like China, Iran where freedom of speach is restrictive. You wouldn't think you'd find those types of restrictions on a university social networking site.

Overall, beyond me getting the boot from the Albright College social networking site there is the greater question here; When does censoring the social web become a danger to growth?  Where is the line? Is it mentioning that you work for an employer, is it using profanity? Where does it end and what effect does it have on the ability to grow a vibrant social community?  I believe you do need to have rules but my personal belief is that Albright has gone to far and has ruled thier social network with an iron fist. New to social media, Albright still has a lot to learn!