Backlash against 'poisonous' gossip site
February 18, 2008 The student found his name on the Web site beside a rambling,
filthy passage about his sexual exploits, posted by an anonymous
student on campus. The young man could only hope the commentary was
so ridiculous nobody would believe it.
"I thought, `Is this going to affect my job employment? Is this
going to make people on campus look at me? Are people going to talk
about me behind my back?" said the student, who asked not to be
identified. He also wondered about his 11-year-old sister, who is
spending more time on the Internet. "What if she Googles me? What
will she think about her big brother?" he said.
JuicyCampus' endless threads of anonymous innuendo have been a
popular Web destination on the seven college campuses where the
site launched last fall, including Duke, UCLA and Loyola Marymount.
It recently expanded to 50 more, and many of the postings show
they've been viewed hundreds and even thousands of times.
But JuicyCampus has proved so poisonous there are signs of a
backlash.
In campus debates over Internet freedom, students normally take
the side of openness and access. This time, however, student
leaders, newspaper editorials and posters on the site are fighting
back - with some even asking administrators to ban JuicyCampus.
It's a kind of plea to save the students, or at least their
reputations, from themselves.
"It is an expression from our student body that we don't want
this junk in our community," said Andy Canales, leader of the
student government at Pepperdine, which recently voted 23-5 to ask
for a ban.
The vote came after a long and emotional debate on the limits of
free speech, and was swayed by stories from students such as Haley
Frazier, a junior residential adviser. She had recently come across
a teary transfer student who had been humiliated on the site barely
a week after arriving on campus.
"I can't imagine the disgust she must have for Pepperdine if
that's what (students) say," Frazier said.
College administrators say they are appalled by the site but
have no control over it since students can see it outside the
campus computer network. They say all they can do is urge students
not to post items or troll for malicious gossip - and hope that in
the process they learn about how to get along.
That tactic may be having an effect.
At a number of campuses where JuicyCampus was a hot topic even
just a few weeks ago, students and administrators say use and
complaints have tapered off sharply. That's hard to confirm;
Internet tracker comScore Inc. says the site's visitor numbers are
too low to be counted by its system.
But more and more postings criticize the site, with comments
like, "let's not ruin each other's lives," and, "If you can't
personalize any of the stuff you read or write here, imagine it
happening to your sister or your best friend."
"People have gotten just extremely sick of hearing all this
stuff," said Rachelle Palisoc, a freshman at Loyola Marymount in
California, who joined a Facebook group called "Ban
Juicycampus!!!!" that has about 850 members.
Free to use and supported by advertising, JuicyCampus is a
simple conduit urging users to post gossip and promising them total
anonymity. There are threads on campus hook-ups, who's popular and
who's overweight.
"Top ten freshman sluts" reads one typical thread, and "The
Jews ruin this school" another. Homophobia is common. Many
postings combine the cruelty of a middle school playground, the
tight social dynamics of a college campus and the alarming global
reach of the Internet.
JuicyCampus pledges that it blocks its discussion boards from
being indexed by search sites like Google, and that appears to be
true.
"College students are clever and fun-loving, and we wanted to
create a place where they could share their stories," said Matt
Ivester, the site's founder, who agreed to answer questions by
e-mail.
"Like anything that is even remotely controversial, there are
always people who demand censorship," he said in response to calls
he has rejected - including one from his alma mater, Duke - for him
to shut down the site. "However, we believe that JuicyCampus can
have a really positive impact on college campuses, as a place for
both entertainment and free expression. Frankly, we're surprised
that any college administration would be against the free exchange
of ideas."
Duke's vice president for student affairs, Larry Moneta, said
the school asked Ivester to consider "moderating the venom or at
least moderating the opportunity for venom." However, "my sense
is that's not that person's interest," Moneta said.
Under U.S. law, sites like JuicyCampus generally bear no
responsibility for what their users post, said George Washington
University law professor Daniel Solove, author of the recent book
"The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the
Internet."
But Solove believes Congress and the courts have gone overboard
protecting such sites. It's one thing to protect the owner of a Web
site when someone posts a defamatory message unbeknownst to the
operator. But Solove says sites like JuicyCampus exist solely to
propagate gossip and should be held to a different standard.
In fact, JuicyCampus seems designed to shield its users from the
threat of libel claims. The site's privacy page notes that it logs
the numeric Internet protocol addresses of its users, but does not
associate those addresses with specific posts. That is unlike
mainstream social networking sites, which do maintain such detailed
logs.
JuicyCampus also goes further by directing posters to free
online services that cloak IP addresses. "Just do a quick search
on Google and find one you like," JuicyCampus advises.
The site's companion blog reminds users that "our terms and
conditions require users to agree not to post anything that is
defamatory, libelous, etc." But a few paragraphs later, the blog
implies that it will rebuff anything short of a public safety
query: "If your school calls upset about some girl being called a
slut, we're not handing over access to our server data. If the LAPD
calls telling us there is a shooting threat, you better believe
we're gonna help them ..."
Fraternity and sorority leaders and student governments are
mainly urging students to sap the site of advertisers by turning a
blind eye.
"If we don't get on there it will die," said C.J. Slicklen,
student government president at Cornell, where students vented at a
meeting last week.
The concerns extend beyond hurt feelings. At Loyola Marymount, a
now-former student was arrested after allegedly posting a threat of
a campus shooting spree on JuicyCampus. And the dangers of social
network bullying were highlighted by the recent death of a
13-year-old suburban St. Louis girl who committed suicide after
receiving cruel messages on her MySpace page - messages that turned
out to be a hoax.
Pepperdine spokesman Jerry Derloshon said the school applauds
the student government's reaction, though Pepperdine has not banned
the site.
"In the end," he said, "the site's shock value will diminish
and it will be revealed for what it is: empty."