Arizona State's "Covid Parties" advertised on Facebook

Time to poke some idiots in the butt, Sparky!

As some of you out there know, I teach math at Arizona State University. Over the summer, ASU has been working on almost draconian measures to make sure that Covid-19 doesn’t spread across the student body. This appears to be a losing battle, as ASU has no control over what students have been doing the past few months, or even over non-school activities. Many schools that open have had to close within a week or two, because a student tested positive.

However, things have gotten even worse: Facebook advertised Covid parties.

Arizona State University regents are suing in federal court Facebook and the owner of an Instagram account that advertised “ASU COVID parties” online. The regents say an account with the Instagram handle asu_covid.parties was sharing misinformation about the coronavirus to students and claimed to be throwing large parties at the university as students returned to campus for the fall semester.

It is unclear who ran the account. ASU’s lawsuit names “John Doe aka asu_covid.parties” as the defendant alongside Facebook.

Good for them … so far. But here’s the flip side:

The lawsuit also alleged the account engaged in the unauthorized use of the university’s trademark and school colors.

“We have removed the account in question for violating our policies,” a spokesperson for Facebook, Instagram’s owner, told the Arizona Republic. “We disagree that the account infringes any trademark rights ASU might have.”

Classes started August 20, but because some of the rooms were not ready, they were taught with Zoom. Monday is the first day that classes meet in the classroom, and I suspect we’ll be back online within a week or two.