It all started with a painfully true quip from the senior class president: “I didn’t even know we had a Student Government Twitter account.” The offhand remark drew chuckles from the Student Senate, because we all knew of the sad state of our social media.
Later that meeting, the newly appointed chairwoman of the Information and Communications committee had us all whip out our phones and follow the Senate Instagram account. I acted accordingly only to realize that I was already following the account, which had not posted since December 2017. To give you a sense of how active the account is, there are only six pictures for all of 2017.
SG has had a very contentious relationship with social media. One does not have to look back far to see The Alligator’s criticism of the majority party for its lack of elections advertising on social media. During the endorsement interviews for the past election, the Editorial Board asked the majority party’s representatives why the Facebook page had not promoted elections, and they did not have an answer.
A couple days later, a graphic promoting SG elections appeared on the SG Facebook page. I suppose it was a bit better than last year when SG decided to start promoting elections on the second day of elections. Perhaps our SG is actually representative of all of us, solely in terms of procrastination.
SG’s social media (though not the Senate’s) is run by an agency called Action SG. Back in Spring, the minority party objected to the Student Body President’s appointment to run the agency due to the candidate lacking relevant qualifications. The only things the guy really had going for him (in the eyes of the majority party) were being the president of a fraternity, his Asian heritage (gotta put some effort into faking diversity) and being part of Blue Key — none of which has much to do with good social media, so here we are.
Looking over his resume, I saw no direct experience or qualifications and, looking over the minutes of the meeting where we objected to him, I mentioned that someone from within Action SG (aka having direct prior experience) was passed over in picking him.
It happens pretty often: Someone comes and swipes up a leadership position no one would expect of them, whereas the deserving candidate, who worked long and hard, does not get as far and usually drops out afterward.
I have not seen the kid show up for reports at Senate meetings or even partying at Midtown, which is usually a pretty reliable place to bump into members of the executive branch… letting off some steam. Hope he is OK.
So yeah, about that Twitter. Looking at the account, the first thing I see is a pinned tweet from June 1, which is immediately concerning. There are six tweets since September and radio silence between then and June (#yikes).
The Senate Twitter, on the other hand, is even more dismal. There are actually two accounts. The first account’s last post was in 2009: “Senate Assassins has officially begun!” Clearly whoever had the password to the first Twitter account was assassinated since there were no posts after that.
The second account’s first tweet reads, “We are the your UF SG Senators, and we have created this account to promote transparency and availability to the student body. Go #Gators!” The second tweet reads, “The second UF SG Senate meeting of the Summer semesters is now underway! #Gators.” That’s it: two tweets in 2011. Looks like the assassins really have a grudge against social media folks. RIP transparency and “availability.”
The cabinet Facebook page has posted reliably since September, but the last post prior was in December of 2017 (just like our Senate Instagram). Only the good Lord knows what happened that month. Was it the return of the assassins?
Looking over SG’s social media, I suppose it is like a sinking ship, but that would be offensive to sinking ships. At least we, more or less, seem to be doing a halfway decent job now, bobbing in the water in our life jackets as the sharks (or assassins in scuba gear) swim below.
Zachariah Chou is a UF political science junior and Murphree area senator. His column appears on Fridays.
