Juicy Campus

Gossip, rumors, buzz and my personal favorite, back-fence talk. Our society glorifies gossip when it comes to celebrities. Entertainment it's called. Perez Hilton has made a career out of gossip about celebrities on his website and we may not think twice about it. What about would you do if you see gossip about posted by your own peers on a site developed just for that?

Juicycampus.com was developed August 1, 2007 by Matt Ivestor, a Duke University graduate, "with the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech."

Juicycampus.com boasts anonymity, its slogan being: "Always Anonymous...Always Juicy." The Privacy and Tracking Policy reads: "It is not possible for anyone to use this website to find out who you are or where you are located, we do not collect any information directly from you. We do not track any information that can be used by us to identify you." There are 61 supported schools including the Navy and the Air Force, and an opportunity to suggest a school, anonymously, of course.

Buffalo State College has no listing but UB does. The website says it is in beta, which means they are trying the site out so various campuses are not supported. The students enrolled at supported campuses have no protection from the potential posts. There is no need to register and anyone from anywhere can post anything about anyone. Under Juicy Campus's terms and conditions, users agree not to post anything "unlawful, threatening, abusive, tortious, defamatory, obscene, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy." There are posts that name individuals and claim they are sluts, pedophiles, drug dealers, and revealing personal identifying information so readers will not be mistaken as to who they are. Once something is posted, it cannot be edited or removed unless it is false. However in the site's FAQ section, they are exceptions to that rule. The site says that a person's opinion can be "stupid, ignorant, or mean-spirited, but they can't be untrue." They claim that the First Amendment protects jokes and parodies and if something ridiculous is posted as fact, it is obviously meant as a joke.

The site has seen a lot of publicity lately from CNN to college newspapers. Especially on campuses that have listings on the site. Students at Pepperdine, Columbia, and Yale, among others, are trying to ban the site from their campus.

As college students in the age of technology, we have to be aware that we have online reputations when we sign up and participate on site's such as facebook, MySpace, YouTube, and Juicy Campus. These reputations can come back to haunt us when we are adults. A simple Google search can give information from any one of these sites that you may have forgotten to a potential employer. With the occurrence of school shootings, we need to think about the consequences of our behavior and our behavior toward others now, before it is too late.

All I know is...I better not catch my name up there!