After BARE's presidential candidate complained about the satirical accounts, AVW made the decision to have them taken down.
AVW Newstime, a satirical news programs run through AVW Productions, deleted several of their parody Twitter accounts after they received complaints from Student Senate tickets.
According to Evan Swingle, an AVW Newstime producer, the decision came after Ryant Taylor, BARE presidential candidate, asked to speak with members of AVW about the Twitter accounts, which used photos and logos from senate tickets.
“We were fine with them having the accounts … it’s just that there was no consent as far as photos and logos,” Taylor said.
While the photos and logos did make the Twitter pages seem legitimate, a link to AVW’s website was included in the bio of every parody account to make it clear they were satirical, said Trista Thurston, AVW’s general manager.
This year was not the first time the organization had made parody accounts for senate tickets.
“Ryant Taylor posted on to our Facebook fan page that we needed to have a conversation about this,” Swingle said. “I didn’t want to compromise what we were doing upon the request of one of the people … that were part of the joke.”
That Facebook post eventually led to a meeting between Swingle, Taylor and Jesse Neader, a student organization coordinator from OU’s Campus Involvement Center, who acted as a mediator.
AVW originally agreed to simply take down the photos and logos, but after discussion with other members of AVW Newstime, Swingle decided to delete the accounts altogether.
“It’s just not worth the effort honestly,” Thurston said, adding that the alternative of creating Photoshopped images for the accounts would be a waste of time given the short length of this year’s Student Senate election.
The BARE ticket was not the only senate party to voice problems with the parody accounts, said Omar Kurdi, Student Senate’s Board of Elections co-chair.
“We were never involved,” Kurdi said. “What happened is the parties had told us that this is happening and we talked to the BOE and they said we can't control free speech.”
Ryan Lombardi, vice president for Student Affairs, said he had heard about the situation but had no involvement in AVW’s decision to delete the accounts.
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