The Web site Juicy Campus (www.juicycampus.com) has gained a lot of notoriety lately, and with good reason: the site lets college students anonymously post gossip about their classmates. It's the modern day digital equivalent of writing nasty things about someone on the wall of a bathroom stall, except it's there on line for everyone to see.
As you can imagine, many people at the campuses Juicy Campus covers are outraged at the crude, mean-spirited stuff people are posting. There are discussions about hook-ups on campus, popular students, "top freshman sluts," who's fat, and a fair helping of homophobia, people have said.
The founders of Juicy Campus say they are just allowing students to exercise their freedom of speech. Students and administrators who are upset with Juicy Campus are now grappling with just that issue: how to deal with the problem without banning the site from campuses, which would go against colleges' long-held dedication to the free expression of ideas.
And keeping students from accessing the site on campus wouldn't be possible anyway. So what to do? Some campus groups are encouraging students to simply ignore Juicy Campus. Since the site is free and is supported through advertising, they hope that the site will go under if its advertising dollars dry up.
Monday, February 18, 2008
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