He highlighted the incident as an example of how the policy can help educate student athletes about the relationship between NCAA rules and social media.

“I think that this just puts it more in front of people’s minds when they’re student athletes,” Ablauf said. “Our goal is to continue to educate. Obviously, they’re on the stage, there are things that happen and things that people do that they don’t mean to do it, and … the young man did not know that was an NCAA violation. So that’s why for us it’s all about educating.”

Other universities also monitor student athlete social media accounts, and some colleges even opt to outsource the task to other organizations. The Universities of North Carolina, Nebraska and Oklahoma universities work with Varsity Monitor, a business that tracks the social media actions of student athletes to ensure they stay within NCAA rules, according to an article in The New York Times.

The University of Florida also works with a company called UDiligence to monitor social media actions of their football players, according to the article.

Kevin Long, CEO of UDiligence, said the business works with about two dozen universities, mostly in the BCS and Division I. The company requires student athletes to download an online application to allow UDiligence to access their Twitter and Facebook posts. The company then uses an automated system with various key words to search through messages posted by athletes and scan for any inappropriate content, specified by the hiring university. The system then updates the schools and athlete of their findings.

Long said the company’s mission is to educate athletes about creating a social media identity that will appeal to employers after graduation. He referred to the incident this fall in which Michigan State University football players tweeted harshly about University quarterback Denard Robinson’s performance in the Alabama season opener.

“Some Michigan State players tweeted thoughts about Denard Robinson, and because of what they tweeted, that is going to be the first thing that comes up and, as a future employer, people are going to take a look at that and think, ‘Is this the type of person we want to be a part of our team?’” Long said.

In its 2012-2013 Student-Athlete Handbook, Michigan State Athletics Department provides social media guidelines, but it does not monitor the social media accounts of their athletes. It holds “random checks” of the accounts and assesses incidents when brought forward.

Ablauf said the Athletic Department does not see the need to bring in an outside organization to monitor student athlete’s social media activity at the University, adding that the public and media also serve as natural monitors of social media messages.

“We’re looking and monitoring these things, but we aren’t the only people looking at them,” Ablauf said. “We have not decided to go down the path of using the company to monitor. Right now we have a pretty decent process in place.”