Fourth Estate/Erica Munisar
Instagram post defending Hamas attack liked by official Mason Student Government account, PR Secretary takes responsibility
BY ERICA MUNISAR, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
During a Student Senate meeting on March 14, it was discussed that the Mason Student Government official Instagram page liked a post by Students For Justice In Palestine at George Mason University, which defended the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Secretary of Public Relations Shreyas Adicherla took responsibility for the incident due to his position, but stated uncertainty regarding whether he or another member with access had liked the post.
According to members of SG, the liking of the post was not reflective of the opinions of all members of the organization. During the session, Speaker Scott Tatum shared that the Student Senate did not collectively approve the liking of the post.
Adicherla and President Paul Wyche claimed that posts liked by the official SG Instagram account do not equate to endorsements of content within the post, including the post by SJP Mason on Oct. 9.
“We like a lot of posts that have to do with registered student organizations. SJP is a registered student organization on campus. Just because they make a post, it doesn’t mean that we’re making a statement,” Adicherla said. “It’s no different from liking a post from COSA, from HLLA [or] from Fourth Estate… Liking posts isn’t a statement. It’s kind of like how people say Twitter retweets aren’t endorsements. We like posts because we support students.”
Fourth Estate was denied knowledge of who had access to the Instagram page by Adicherla and Wyche. President Wyche shared that SG does not have a set list of members with access. Additionally, Wyche explained that interactions by the page are made without an official approval process.
“Anything such as a story repost or like… doesn’t have the full backing of Student Government. The PR team who has main access to the social media account pretty much has their own autonomy.” Wyche said. “They can do as they wish with the social media accounts, of course within reason, but we don’t want [them] to have to ask us about every like [and] repost. It’s only when certain incidents arise… We might go in and be like, ‘Okay, maybe this shouldn’t have been done.’”
Wyche shared that he unliked the post on Wednesday, March 13 without notifying other members of SG and said that the organization did not mean to offend any communities, including the Jewish and Israeli population at Mason.
“Our job within Student Government is to truly represent all the students… We truly are here for you and we hope you feel comfortable approaching us or coming to us… So I apologize if that offended anyone, or you didn’t feel truly represented or you were hurt by it. That was certainly not the objective,” Wyche said.
