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ERIC Number: EJ790333
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2008-Mar-28
Pages: 1
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-5982
EISSN: N/A
How to Combat a Campus-Gossip Web Site (And Why You Shouldn't)
Young, Jeffrey R.
Chronicle of Higher Education, v54 n29 pA16 Mar 2008
The author discusses the gossip Web site Juicy Campus. Although many students express concern that potential employers who see the cite may decline to hire individuals after reading gossip-filled allegations, or that their social lives are in tatters over the mean-spirited, anonymous messages posted about them, because the site has no affiliation with any of the 60 colleges about which it has set up gossip message boards, campus officials cannot pull the plug. And the Web site claims that it is not breaking any laws, no matter how malicious the postings are, because it simply offers a public forum and is not responsible for what is submitted there. College officials and students on campuses across the country have fought Juicy Campus on several fronts since it hit the Web. Requests to site founders to moderate its tone (ignored); blockading the site from campus networks (declined by campus technology leaders); complaints to advertisers (Google ejected the site from its ad network, but the site quickly found another Web-advertising network and continues to use the same Web-hosting company); and attempts to crash the site by posting long, off-topic messages, or setting up software robots to send hundreds of messages automatically; have been unsuccessful. According to many campus administrators, ignoring the site appears to be the best approach, hoping to deprive it of publicity and starving it of life. Even this success, however, is limited: for now, students on dozens of campuses continue to post to the site enthusiastically, calling each other names. Many others wish it would stop, but even some of them are reading to see whose name appears next.
Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com/
Publication Type: Journal Articles
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A