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PCSD Superintendent Says Anti-Biden Article Was Shared By Her Twitter Account In Error

Park City School District
/
PCSD

Park City School District Superintendent Jill Gildea was recently surprised to discover that her Twitter account had shared an article disparaging President-elect Joe Biden.

Superintendent Jill Gildea has subscribed to the content aggregator Paper.li for about a year. She says she joined the Paper.li feed because it provides educational news and information that she has found valuable as the Park City School District leader. She says the article shared by her account this week has no bearing on her political or social viewpoints.

“This disturbing post was up there, and I scanned the article. It definitely did have education, leadership common terms within the article, which is why it likely pulled it up. I had not blocked politics as a topic but certainly it had never pulled anything political prior to that.” 

Paper.li is an aggregator, says Gildea. The thread that loaded onto her Twitter account, she says, neither reflects her beliefs nor is appropriate for her Superintendent role. The story came from lawenforcementtoday.com. It was headlined “Think Biden’s Build Back Better slogan is just a cheesy phrase? Think again. It’s much worse.”

“Followed up with them to find out how this could have happened my content duration is really all educational journals that they would pull from. I also had permitted this query educational leadership and digital promise because both of those groups are great groups that typically have great material and information for someone like me who cares about digital equity and innovative practice.” 

She’s learned about artificial intelligence and aggregators and has taken steps to address the digital safety issues that surfaced on her Twitter account.

“So, I immediately changed my password in case it was a hack because I wasn't certain about that. I actually did adjust my username so that it is not linked to PCSD because I don't want people to think you know that that was a school brand or a school topic. Of course, it's not a personal topic of mine either. But so you can always change your passwords to a more complex password to ensure safety. I did discontinue that subscription, but I did learn that with additional fees, I could have done a manual upload instead of an auto upload. So, that would have given me editing rights prior to a post. It's really good to be in control and in charge of all of your own social media and all of your own media posts.”

Gildea advises taking immediate action should other people experience a similar situation. She says if something like this happens again, she would give up social media and find other ways to keep up with educational articles.

“Also, then post on my Twitter you know, what had happened because certainly I do not subscribe to personally any kind of extremist groups or magazines or clubs or organizations, not personally or professionally. I'm a pretty moderate person who tries to be balanced and I really do try to stay away from all things political other than, you know, the heart of politics of course, is caring for one another and that certainly I do believe in. But doing our best to keep a healthy and safe community. But thank you for the people who forwarded. Thank you for those who said, hey, this seems off because it certainly was.” 

Superintendent Gildea says the social media landscape is difficult to navigate, and the experience has taught her to take control of deciding what gets posted and what doesn’t.

KPCW reporter Carolyn Murray covers Summit and Wasatch County School Districts. She also reports on wildlife and environmental stories, along with breaking news. Carolyn has been in town since the mid ‘80s and raised two daughters in Park City.
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