It must be pretty hard to be a senior executive at Google, Facebook or Twitter. Though their technologies are predominantly used in interesting and positive ways, increasingly they have become the communication platform for terrorists and many other illegal activities. In the rush to claim victory for having millions and millions of users and monetize that for billions and billions of dollars, these companies have put many important matters in the back burner – such as developing strong acceptable use policies, detection and containment of illegal activities.

Many of these issues are hard and cumbersome, but it is not clear whether these companies even feel it is their obligation to worry about them or whether we should even expect them to. The recent revelations that these platforms played an important role in the interference by Russia in the US elections is serious enough to ask hard questions about what are their obligations. They all tout the use of new technologies to improve user experience everyday, while hiding the fact that they are doing it primarily to boost their profits. I understand that they are in the business of making money, but why are they not using these new technologies also to detect and prevent illegal activities?

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Today was the first day of classes and Convocation at the College. It was great to see all our students back. I saw a couple of our Helpdesk students working hard to clear the tickets even after we closed! I wanted to write about a few things with no particular connections to each other…

Social Media Problems

A student applied and was admitted to Univ of Rochester. Then, like all teenagers, she wrote about it in Facebook! It turns out that someone from the private high school she attended who saw this information on Facebook found this to be a little disconcerting, because the administrators do not remember the student asking for grades or recommendations be sent to Univ of Rochester. Anyways, upon further investigation, the University Admissions officers revealed that she claimed that she was home schooled and used a transcript service that helps home schooled children to send transcripts and sent in recommendation letters too. Once they found the real scoop, they rescinded her admission!

Along the same lines, in June, Harvard rescinded admissions to 10 students for a “a group exchange of racist and sexually offensive Facebook messages”.

One way to look at it is that Social Media brought out the true colors of people that are otherwise hard to gauge! Tough luck for those students whose admissions were rescinded!

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I just realized that I had not written for quite some time. It has to do with the fact that we are very close to the launch of some new and exciting systems (I would prefer not to reveal them publicly!) and also several things related to onboarding our first year students. I have been playing golf as always and thoroughly enjoying it. There is a lot one can learn by playing such a difficult game, and apply them both in personal and professional life.

Before I go any further, I want to say that I play golf because I love the game and I love to be outdoors for a stretch of time! Also, the outings that I have with my children are precious and priceless.

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Today is commencement day at Wellesley. It is indeed a day of celebrations. As I was walking from the location, where we all have been asked to park, to my office, I could see the proud parents and relatives of graduates walking towards the tent to get the best possible seats. This year, because of the weather, the ceremonies will be held under a tent. That didn’t seem to damper the enthusiasm of the visitors.

For those who are graduating, about 569 this year, Congratulations on your achievements at the College! I hope you all received the best education in not just the academics, but also about life. I sure hope that we, from Library and Technology Services supported you through this journey well. Initial indications from the senior survey appears that we did well.

I want to thank all the LTS student employees (I believe 39 of them) who are graduating  today for their hard work and excellent contributions over the past years that they worked for us. We cannot do our work well without our student employees! (more…)