College pulls plug on Union server

Senior Union figures were left at odds with College last week when the Union’s server was shut down by ICT security following a complaint made by a member of the public about an article posted on the Rugby Club’s website. The Union reacted angrily issuing a statement calling the shutdown “overblown and unnecessary” and accusing the College of failing to follow proper procedures.

The main Clubs & Societies server had a ban placed on its primary IP at 13:30 on Thursday 17th February by ICT Security for just under an hour. This resulted in all Clubs & Societies websites becoming inaccessible, along with the room booking system and the eVoting site currently accepting nominations for Sabbatical elections. The shutdown is like to have caused significant disruption to students attempting to participate in the elections or book rooms for their Clubs & Societies; as a comparison, in the hour before the shutdown, the server received 14,429 page requests.

The offending article in question was a match report of Imperial Rugby Club Old Boys recent victory against London New Zealand II’s in the Middlesex Merit League 1 competition. It contained the use of the word “fuck” on two occasions and made indirect reference to a member of the public.

There was nothing offensive, and certainly nothing illegal about [the article] Alex Kendall, Union President

Upon reading the article, Deputy President (Clubs & Societies) Heather Jones and President Alex Kendall concluded “that there was nothing offensive, and certainly nothing illegal about [the article.]” However, the member of public complained that the article was libellous.

Before shutting down the server, emails were sent to the Union President’s personal Imperial account. According to the Union, no other attempts were made to contact other members of the Union, including the Union System Administrator who manages the server. In an email to senior members of the College, including the Rector Sir Keith O’Nions, Heather Jones called the lack of communication “utterly indefensible”.

IT Security Manager Chris Roberts commented: “ICT acted on the instructions of the Central Secretariat to disconnect the Union website. I understand that the Secretariat had tried to contact the Union President before disconnecting the website, but had been unable to reach him at the time.”

At approximately 14:20 the ban on the Union server was removed and it was fully operational again. However, the Rugby Club website remained disabled until around 17:30 by which time the article had been edited to asterisk out the swear words and the offending sentence had been removed.

Former-Felix Editor Jovan Nedic, author of the article, criticised the College’s response saying: “I thought it was a bit over the top, there wasn’t anything bad in the article and it certainly wasn’t libellous!” He said that it was “ridiculous” to take down the entire server.

Heather Jones warned that the events would make it more difficult to persuade Clubs & Societies to host their websites on the Union’s server, as required by the Union’s web policy: “It is impossible to persuade clubs to host websites with us if College can’t be trusted to allow them access when it’s required,” she said.

Earlier this term, IC Radio was shutdown after a complaint was made to the Rector’s office about the use of a racial slur on air. In that incident, the complaint was passed to the Union, who then made the decision to take down the entire website to show “how seriously [the Union] considers racially offensive language”. The website was back online within 24 hours.

The Rector has apologised to the Union for the reaction of the College. The Union have said that they are working to form “a more coherent procedure for the future if a member of the public complains about content on the Union website.”