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College Gossip Website JuicyCampus.com Sparks Media Attention

Jay

As I watched The Today Show yesterday, I saw a segment on the website juicycampus.com. Not familiar with this website, I immediately logged onto my computer and explored. I was amazed at what I saw. All you have to do when you enter this site is type in the name of one of the 57 colleges featured on the site, and you can view or post “juicy gossip” about your fellow classmates or faculty. There is no login required and all the posts on this website are anonymous. Therefore, if you have beef with a girl in one of your classes, you can call her out on the site for all her imperfections, post it live, and no one will ever know you posted it! As a result, this website is sparking a lot of attention.

With the more recent case involving a teenager committing suicide after receiving nasty messages on myspace.com, where do we draw the line with online social communities? Lawyers have been trying to ban this site but have been unsuccessful up until this point. Juicycampus.com states on their site that they ban offensive material, yet inappropriate remarks are still being posted daily. With just a couple of clicks online, ones reputation at a university can be destroyed! While online social communities promote free speech and encourage users to participate online and become more active, should a website of this nature be illegal?

Additional information on Juicy Campus can be found here.