Another ‘juicy’ website raises concern

Felicia Vance
Contributing Writer

VCU Criminal Justice sophomore Ashley Coleman was in her dorm during a break between classes last year when she got a text message from a friend: “Check out CollegeACB.com,” it read.

On the website, Coleman found her name beside an explicit passage about her supposed partying and sexual exploits, posted by an anonymous student.

“When I first read the post, I was upset, and it really hurt my feelings. I just don’t understand how someone could hate you so much to publicly humiliate someone like that,” Coleman said.

CollegeACB’s endless threads of anonymous innuendo have emerged as a popular Web destination for college students since Juicy Campus shut down. Juicy Campus was a gossip site that hurt the reputations of many students, organizations and schools.

Like its predecessor, CollegeACB has proved so poisonous that a backlash has begun.

In campus debates over Internet freedom, students normally take the side of openness and access. This time, however, student leaders, newspaper editorials and posters on the site are fighting back – with some even asking their schools’ administrators to ban CollegeACB.

Some universities have blocked the site on their campus computer networks. They include Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., and Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss.

Other campuses have adopted the philosophy that CollegeACB will run its course and then disappear.

Dr. Charles Klink, VCU’s assistant vice provost for student affairs and enrollment services, is concerned about gossip websites.

Klink said that if students feel they are being bullied or harassed online, they should contact his office and/or Technology Services. Technology Services controls VCU’s computer network.

“Personally, I feel these sites are inappropriate and potentially hurtful,” Klink said. “I do feel the larger issue is really how we treat one another and the expectations we have of one another.”

College administrators have no control over CollegeACB because the site is not hosted on a campus Web server. CollegeACB.com is operated by a company in Pompano Beach, Fla. School officials say all they can do is urge students not to post or search for gossip on the site.

CollegeACB says its goal is to build community and foster an open exchange of information.

“The CollegeACB or College Anonymous Confession Board seeks to give students a place to vent, rant and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo,” Peter Frank, the site’s owner and operator, said in a press release.

CollegeACB officials said their site is different from the now-defunct Juicy Campus. They said CollegeACB has a user-moderation button that’s easy and unobtrusive: Any post flagged as threatening, libelous or otherwise illegal is immediately brought to the webmaster’s attention.

Yet in a press release in May, CollegeACB officials said that under the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996, they have no responsibility for user-generated content and no legal obligation to remove offensive posts.

CollegeACB officials said Juicy Campus “fostered superficial interactions, often derogatory and needlessly crude.” They said they want to host “a higher level of discourse – while still making room for the occasional gossip post.”

Despite such assertions, the VCU discussion board on CollegeACB contains comments many would consider derogatory and crude. The site displays liberal use of profanity and numerous postings ridiculing specific students by name.