Helm ’68: U. blocked me from TigerNet

TigerNet subscribers may have found their inboxes slightly less full these past few weeks, ever since Harold Helm ’68 — an alumnus infamous for his tendency to bombard the alumni listservs with barrages of e-mails on a variety of subjects — said he was banned from the database. The University declined to comment on Helm’s specific case or confirm that he had been banned, citing privacy concerns.

In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Helm said he was stunned by his expulsion from TigerNet. “I’ve been using [the database] for many years, and I’ve always tried to follow the rules,” he said. “[On Sept. 28] I tried to log in, and I found that I was temporarily suspended. It was really a surprise.”

Bob Hernandez ’69, a friend of Helm’s and a fellow TigerNet user, also expressed distress over Helm’s removal from the online forum. “No one has explained to us how this came about, who made or authorized the decision, or on what basis it was made,” Hernandez said. “I feel violated by this behavior.”

Over the past few decades, Helm has garnered a reputation within some alumni circles for his unceasing e-mail floods. In a 2007 interview with the ‘Prince,’ Marta Richards ’73 described Helm as “in general very far left,” adding that “in many of the alumni e-mail lists, he sends what amounts [to] spam, full of URLs to crazy websites and articles.”

But Helm said he was not responsible for all of the e-mails that have been sent from his account. “At some point, my e-mail was hacked,” he explained. “Something occurred, and e-mails that I never wrote are being sent with my name on them. Because of this, people think I’m sending spam, but in reality I’m not doing so.”

Helm said that University officials explained to him in a series of phone conversations that he had violated many of the rules and regulations that govern the TigerNet system. These rules, posted on the TigerNet website, include the stipulation that users must refrain from “mass distributions [of e-mails] for any personal, commercial (e.g., ads or spamming) or political activity.”

Margaret Miller ’80, the assistant vice president of the University’s Alumni Council, said there is a system for banning users from TigerNet, but she declined to comment on Helm’s specific case. “In the extremely rare instances when these policies are not adhered to, we have a formal and well stated process in place to ensure that TigerNet remains a welcoming community in which all alumni feel comfortable engaging,” she said in an e-mail.

Though he acknowledged he has been told on occasion that he is “too political” in his postings, Helm denied violating any rules of the TigerNet forums, claiming he “[does] not care about politics per se, but about Princeton.”

Helm added that he thinks his banning from TigerNet runs contrary to the University’s core values. “An institution such as Princeton, which values free speech above all else, ought not to treat its alumni in such a manner,” he said. “I use TigerNet to discuss things that are important to me and that I believe are important to the University community. That’s what Princeton encouraged me to do as an undergraduate.”