The Canadian Press has an interesting article about JuicyCampus.com, a site on which college students can anonymously post trashy, often malicious gossip about each other: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 . . . 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.
We're not sure what the big deal is. The site is blocked from Google search, so it's unlikely to affect future job prospects. The main people on there are frat guys and sorority girls obsessed with ranking each others' hotness.The little revenge posts are the only ones that are fun to read. For example: Last summer I met Zac in Boston at this house party. After the party we went back to his apartment and watched Reality Bites. After about 20 minutes we started to fool around. Nothing serious. I mean, I *** a couple times. Anyways once I got to Vandy he totally ignored me. So F you ZAC!
Instead of banning such sites (good luck with that), why don't we all just agree not to believe everything we read about each other on the internet? And not to date Zac. He sounds like a jerk.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. I agree with Ada. If we decide to ban this site...then all tabloids in American should be banned, think of what THEY say about people...oh wait, they're celebrities, so they're not REAL people....
Strados at 6:42PM on Feb 19th 2008
2. Once was a time when going to college or university was an honor and a privlege, ain't so now. People are going to college who are not equiped educationally or emotionally for the task at hand, getting a good, higher education. People who blog this type of bribble are wasting time, money and what little brain power they have. Send them home to work at a fast food hamburger stand where they can reach their full potential.
JEB Rogers at 9:41AM on Feb 20th 2008
3. JuicyCampus isn't all that. I started a website a lot like JuicyCampus only better around the same time. On GossipReport.com, people can gossip anonymously about anyone, but there are tools in place allowing users to rate the gossip as true or lies, and the authors can be rated too. If the authors get a bad rating over and over, they get kicked off the site. If the gossip gets rated as trash (lies/nastiness/etc.) then it drops off the site. That’s the big difference between JuicyCampus and GossipReport.com - GossipReport.com serves a purpose in society! Like the popularity of these sites show, EVERYONE gossips. It’s something that everyone loves to do whether they admit it or not. GossipReport.com is essentially collecting social history on people. Someday some girl will be saved from a date with a rapist or a psycho thanks to Gossip Report! JuicyCampus is not serving anything for anyone. A lot of the stuff posted on there has no real value.
Elizabeth at 3:36PM on Feb 20th 2008
4. JuicyCampus and GossipReport equally harmful
The creators and promoters of the "gossip report" website are completely wrong. Their website should be held accountable because of its recklessly poor monitoring practices. First, anyone can place personally identifying information such as pictures, videos and last names on the website without that person's consent. Second, anyone can post any information about that person anonymously. Third, staff members of the website have repeatedly claimed that they will not remove information that are lies and/or hurtful to people. At the very least, there is no reasonable for the staff members to verify all the posts that are lies and/or hurtful. Fourth, there is evidence that students at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Washington are being targeted with vicious, graphic postings that are not being removed from the website by the staff. Fifth, there is a pattern of conduct by the staff members that indicate they are reveling free publicity from the outrage over what is happening to innocent minors. These staff members include Elizabeth (hmm…) Bloch, Ashley Murphy, and "investor" David Chase who runs a criminal background organization called "Castle Branch" out of North Carolina.
All of this leads to the conclusion that the operators of this website do not want to reasonably safeguard innocent minors from harm. See the following article:
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080321/NEWS01/706213764
Without immediate changes in the way this website operates, there should be immediate legal action against the site, laws that prevent similar sites from being established so recklessly in the future, and boycotts of everything their creators do to earn a financial living related to this site.
Thanks for listening!
Voice of Reason at 9:38PM on Mar 25th 2008