Should colleges ban athletes from Twitter?

N.C. State's decision to stop its basketball players from tweeting is drawing a thumbs-down from the Charlotte sports marketing firm that advises Penn State, the Big Ten Network, ESPN Plus and other big names in the sports world on handling social media. When I asked Liz Barrett, a consultant with Sports Media Challenge, what she thought, she said N.C. State went too far. She said student-athletes, properly supervised, should be able to handle social media.

Not sure I agree that they'll always follow marching orders and avoid embarrassing their schools, but I do think universities, normally such bastions of free speech, risk looking like free speech censors when they tell student-athletes they can't express themselves in a public forum. Barrett's firm's currently surveying student-athletes, university officials and the general public on the subject. Click here if you'd like to vote.

What do you think? Is it right for colleges to tell students on athletic scholarships that they can't use Twitter?