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Rumor Has ItControversial website provides forum for anonymous ugliness
By Luke Blount, Illustration by David Clark
In the past year, college campuses across the country have grown
considerably more "juicy." In August 2007, JuicyCampus.com opened up
the online door to what the website describes as "anonymous free speech
on college campuses." Users can post information or opinions about
others, and they often cross the line into crude, profane, vulgar, and
even racist language.
 The
website is divided into open forums based on college campuses, and with
the name-calling and gossip increasing in Baylor's forum, one Baylor
student received national attention. In April, a People
magazine article on the controversial website included the story of
Baylor student Amanda Walden, who was called "ugly" and "easy" on the
site. It turned out that one of Walden's best friends fessed up as the
poster. "That hurt me ten times more," Walden told People. "The website can do that--ruin friendships and reputations."
As attention to JuicyCampus heightened around Baylor campus, Student
Government sought to ban the website from the university's computers.
"The bill was proposed because of the negative national attention drawn
by JuicyCampus," said student senator Jessica Lutrell, who authored the
bill. "Personally, I don't see any good that stems from this site. The
university is a place where students learn the ignorance of prejudice,
the repercussions of inequality, and the power of self-confidence. The
website is the antithesis of what a university should uphold as
valuable."
However, according to a statement released from Baylor's Information
Technology Services, "Baylor does not filter Web content other than
pornography, and all other institutions in the Big 12 do not filter
content at all." Therefore, JuicyCampus.com can still be accessed
through the Baylor network of computers.
Not all student government officers were on board with the proposed
ban, Lutrell said. "There was opposition to the bill," she said. "They
thought it might set a precedent for the censorship of other websites
in the future such as baylorfans.com or bubooks.com." Baylorfans is an
independent site covering everything having to do with Baylor, and
bubooks is a textbook-trading and professor-rating site.
Created by 2005 Duke University graduate Matt Ivester, JuicyCampus has
garnered attention nationwide, and not in a good way. New Jersey and
Connecticut launched investigations earlier this year to see if the
website is in violation of the Consumer Fraud Act for not living up to
the site's obligation to monitor libelous content.
JuicyCampus's "frequently asked questions" section states, "Among other
things, you can't post lies about people or groups--that's called
defamation and it's illegal." Although the JuicyCampus staff offers no
real monitoring of these illegal actions, they do add a caveat for
those who may feel they have been libeled: "You might want to consider
whether the comment states a fact or an opinion. Facts can be untrue.
Opinions can be stupid, or ignorant, or mean-spirited, but they can't
be untrue. And we believe everyone is entitled to their opinion. . . .
You should take everything you read with a large grain of salt."
Last December, after a Loyola Marymount University senior posted that
he was going to shoot and kill people on campus, the "anonymous" poster
was quickly identified and arrested. In March, a Colgate University
junior was arrested after writing a post that pondered whether he could
cancel class by starting a shooting spree.
In response, JuicyCampus posted a statement on its blog, which read,
"JuicyCampus has not violated any laws. JuicyCampus is immune under
federal law for liability arising from statements made by others."
But Baylor law professor Brian Serr said, "The point of this site is to
be a forum for anonymous, 'juicy' speech, which seems to be almost
encouraging the dissemination of libelous material. When you have a
forum for such anonymous speech that encourages gossip about persons,
then that seems to be a different animal than newspapers publishing
signed letters to the editor and would be viewed differently legally."
The JuicyCampus founder claims that the amount of hateful posts was not
expected. "We want you to make JuicyCampus juicy, not hateful," wrote
Ivester in a February 29 letter to users.
Even with users generally ignoring his plea, Ivester has remained
committed to keeping the site open as a place for anonymous free
speech. In fact, he recently created a new forum where users can post
issues they have with the site, including posts like "This site needs
to go" and "Go (expletive) this site." Perhaps the most poignant post
is a confession of a former poster titled, "Everything on this site is
hilarious until it says your name."
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