Did Students’ Sarcastic Praise Scare BSU?

The BSU administration has explained the ban on public comments.

The administration of the Belarusian State University states that it did not prohibit negative feedback from students, but it was only about unreliable and deliberately false comments. It is reported by the Expelled Telegram-channel.

It says that on April 16, a meeting between representatives of the BSU Student Assembly and the university administration was held. It also discussed the revised version of the Internal Regulations.

According to Euroradio, paragraph 5.20 of these rules obliges BSU students, undergraduates and interns “not to allow comments regarding the BSU and on behalf of the BSU, which are located in the information space (media, Internet, social media), which can threaten the BSU image and business reputation.”

Representatives of the BSU administration state that this paragraph was added to the revised version of the rules to protect not only the rights and interests of the university as a whole, but the ones of the staff and students as well.

“This wording of the paragraph concerns unreliable and deliberately false comments; comments that intentionally slander the university and its members. These rules are not intended to limit the expression of students' opinions on university activities if they are real and concern members of the university community,” – the statement reads.

It is also reported that the main idea of this innovation is to protect the legitimate interests of the university and its members, including students. “Accordingly, in this understanding and interpretation, this paragraph does not violate local and state regulatory acts,” – the authors note.

We remind that after the innovation, BSU students started to troll administration with sarcastic reviews, in which only praised the Alma Mater.