Locked down computers by (over)zealous IT departments are annoying, not a threat to #AcademicFreedom 🙅♀️
https://universonline.nl/nieuws/2026/02/18/do-highly-secured-laptops-jeopardize-academic-freedom/
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@chartgerink I slows things down. I find asking IT to load atmospheric modeling programs for me cures it. You have to load the programmes in sequence with the settings right or start again. They just give me the admin password
@Microplastics101 ha! I found that to be the remedy to my annoyances too :-)
@chartgerink I recommend ovserving some of the harsher cases. In a few cases I was literally unable to send a stupid csv-like text file to a colleague from an "affected" locked&walled institute. In the end he had to use a personal laptop on his home internet. It was so annoying that in the end we stopped working in that thing.
Systematic obstruction of normal work is a threat.
@exa fair point, yet moving the goalposts from the original article 😉 Annoyances ≠ chilling effect, and overapplying academic freedom devalues it.
@chartgerink nah, the point is that if an imposed annoyance removes 15% of your time that you need to deal with BS to stay effective, it also reduces the amount of academic freedom you can exert by the 15%, and the amount of (very required) motivation to do it at the given institution by 100%. Which is an issue.
The chilling effect is very indirect there, often you simply hear opinions like "how can they do research if they can't click through a few online forms".
@chartgerink in my case I've even had a few issues from "he won't do powerpoint, he still works with that office from eighties!"
(they meant TeX)
@chartgerink in short, this doesn't produce any chilling on its own, just a large tension surface, with all benefits thereof. :)
@chartgerink PS. bonus level: "Why can't you guys just send the datasets with mail? Attachments work for me!"
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