North Carolina Football: Case Sheds Light on NCAA Social Media Policy

When the Notice of Allegations came down for the Tar Heels in June of 2011 there was some nebulous language that referenced the failure of UNC's administration to monitor their student athletes' social media.

That language prompted inquiries from many universities into what exactly they were supposed to be monitoring in the exploding sphere of social media. The actual policy itself is vague and ultimately has proven itself difficult for member institutions to understand and even more difficult for the NCAA to actually enforce.

The latter sentiment proved itself to be true during the conference call that followed the release of the North Carolina sanctions. During the call, which featured both Britton Banowsky and Gregory Sankey of the NCAA Committee on Infraction, the officials explained their thoughts on the social media policy (from ESPN.com):

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"The NCAA was not going to impose a blanket duty on members to monitor social-networking websites, citing issues regarding privacy and where to strike a balance. If information was available and came to the attention of the school, that's one thing, but to expect every school to monitor all the social-networking sites of all of its student-athletes would be too much."

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Basically the NCAA gave North Carolina, and every other school, a fairly easy out in a situation that, since June at least, has been a legitimate question that big-time collegiate athletics programs have had. After the release, there was a rush on getting compliance up to date, to inform student athletes, control Twitter accounts and find a way to get Twitter, Facebook and the like under control.

Schools have taken many different roads to monitor their athletes; making their coaches have a presence on Twitter, having individual program staffers follow the players and check in on them, tasking compliance with monitoring the athletic community and even so far as hiring outside companies to filter and flag Twitter and Facebook interactions.

After revving up, monitoring schools can relax, at least from the NCAA standpoint. The governing body is not going to slam them for not being all up in the business of their athletes. However, the schools aren't exactly out of the woods given the massive public relations gaffes that Twitter and Facebook tend to be good for every now and then, courtesy of the minds of 17-to-22-year-olds.