BY HANK REICHMAN

In a statement, “On Academic Freedom for our Higher Education Users,” Zoom has announced that it will leave content moderation issues to universities for virtually all matter “related to the institution’s academics or operations” and engage in content-based censorship only under rare, clearly delineated conditions. In short, the company now says it will adhere to educational institutions’ own academic freedom and free speech policies.  The statement comes in response to concerns raised by many faculty groups (see, for examples on this blog, here, here, here, and here).  As I wrote in a previous post, “the growing and corrosive practice of colleges and universities — established to serve the common good — outsourcing themselves to private for-profit entities is hardly limited to use of Zoom and other commercial software.  That troubling phenomenon, however, has been called into focus by the pandemic and higher education’s response to it.  Unfortunately, our use of Zoom may be another case of responding to problems by (intentionally or unintentionally) exacerbating them rather than solving them.”

The policy may not be perfect, but it does appear to mark a significant advance.  As University of California at Davis law professor Brian Soucek noted on Twitter, “For those of us at public universities, Zoom’s standard terms of service threatened to bar content that the First Amendment doesn’t allow us to regulate.  And nearly all higher ed users have been outsourcing their academic freedom protections to Zoom since moving online last year.”  That is now, it seems, no longer the case.  However, Soucek added, the new policy does not yet clarify how Zoom will handle its responsibilities under a federal law barring “material support” for terrorism, which the firm invoked when it censored public programs at San Francisco State and New York Universities last year. 

The new policy explicitly recognizes and claims to take “special guidance” from the AAUP/AACU 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and, the company says, will apply to “any higher education institution that has academic freedom policies substantially similar to the AAUP’s inside the classroom, or policies protecting speech on campus that are similar to the rules governing U.S. public universities.”

The following is the text of the new policy:

Zoom recognizes that we have a unique relationship with our higher education users. The worlds of academia and virtual communications are rapidly changing, and we are honored that so many educational institutions have chosen to brave these transformations with us.

Our higher education academic freedom comment is born out of this evolution. We created this statement because our higher education users wanted to know where we stood. We want to stay true to our values to be transparent and incorporate the feedback of our customers in everything we do. While we understand that the physical campuses we know and love do not neatly translate to the virtual spaces of today, we owe it to our higher education users to align our approach to speech and conduct as best we can with those of the academic institutions we serve.

Academic freedom and freedom of speech are defining commitments for many of our higher education users, both inside the classroom and on the broader campus. In drafting this comment, we take special guidance from the American Association of University Professors’ 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

This comment is for any higher education institution that has academic freedom policies substantially similar to the AAUP’s inside the classroom, or policies protecting speech on campus that are similar to the rules governing U.S. public universities.

For Zoom meetings and webinars hosted by a higher education institution, the Trust and Safety team will only act on reports alleging content-related violations of our Community Standards or Terms of Service that come from the meeting’s host or the account’s owners or administrators, unless:

• Zoom determines that there is legal or regulatory risk to Zoom if it does not act;
• the report alleges an immediate threat to the physical safety of any person; or
• the meeting or webinar is unrelated to the institution’s academics or operations.

Zoom will make best efforts to consult with the higher education institution as soon as is reasonably possible before acting on any complaints about violations of Zoom’s Community Standards or Terms of Service. On occasion, Zoom may require the higher education institution to put in writing that a particular meeting is related to the institution’s academics or operations, that the institution agrees to the meeting being hosted in its account, and that the meeting meets the institution’s standards for events on campus and online.

Zoom may update this comment from time to time, and we encourage you to check here for updates.

We look forward to growing in tandem with our higher education users as we tackle novel issues in the ever-evolving world of virtual learning.