{"id":156969,"date":"2023-07-04T10:27:05","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T08:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=156969"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:52","slug":"death-by-a-thousand-clicks-classification-internal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/07\/04\/death-by-a-thousand-clicks-classification-internal\/","title":{"rendered":"Death by a thousand clicks \u2013 Classification: Internal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new draconian IT initiative to label every single thing we do with an arbitrary label invades privacy, and wastes university time. Not only will it in aggregate cost tens of thousands of hours of faculty and student time per year, costing our university hundreds of thousands of euros, the measure reflects an invasive intervention that contrasts the ethos of an open institution such that of a university.<\/p>\n

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On Monday, 11 June, 2023, a very curious phenomena started popping up all around Erasmus University Rotterdam.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, every email, every Word document, every Microsoft-driven software item we use every day, now had a little brand on it. Not the brand of a university desperate to assert its identity as a sustainable or socially forward organisation, but a mark of closedness: \u201cClassification: Internal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top secret<\/h2>

Our public university overnight transformed into a special operations mission, with top secret documents in every smiley face email reply, every journal article in progress, every lunch date appointment. While some might feel exhilarated with the trappings of a James Bond movie, this IT stunt betrays a much more worrying tendency. By some mysterious force, shrouded behind that one-size-fits-all excuse of \u2018security\u2019 and \u2018safety\u2019, the knowledge workers of Erasmus University Rotterdam have somehow become the targets of an (ongoing) harassment campaign.<\/p>\n

Mind you, the official justifications of classifying everything isn\u2019t harassment; that is merely its consequence. I\u2019m sure there are good IT reasons for turning the thumbscrews on professors and students. Without asking us about whether this is necessary or helpful, all of a sudden, the top-down powers that be invade our computers (including my home computer, on which I am writing this), reach into the bowels of our programs and documents, and assert arbitrary power. Old Word documents from twenty years ago suddenly appear with a \u2018Classification: Internal\u2019 label when I open them. I feel violated.<\/p>\n

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Psychological wall<\/h2>

When universities institute measures without consulting those who they will be forced upon, we stop working as a democracy. The illusion of scholarly autonomy and self-determination shatters.<\/p>\n

Cory Doctorow, the internet freedom pioneer would call<\/a> this \u2018monopolistic dominance over informational systems\u2019, mediating the communication of a supposed \u2018free\u2019 and \u2018open\u2019 university. To the heart of the matter, for what reason does every document we create or send now have to be labeled? Creating the \u2018Classification: Internal\u2019 begs the question: what is there to hide? And from whom? By building a psychological wall, either to keep something out or keep something in, does this constraint not further hamper the open discussion a university should foster? By calling police on protestors or setting up IT \u2018obstacles\u2019, does this not widen the gap between the generation that will have to face the many crises of the future and the institution they trust to learn from? Top-down institutions have the duty to foster bottom-up action and discussion, not to further clog the communication channels of its staff and students.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t