On Feb. 5, Juicy Campus, the notorious college gossip website, shut down forever. Juicy Campus closed not because of alleged links with student suicides or belittling rape victims, but because of decreasing ad revenues in the face of the country's economic meltdown.
The site's founder, Matt Ivester (otherwise to be considered an ignorant moron), released an open letter last week referencing the meaningful discussion about online privacy and internet censorship"" he believes Juicy Campus invoked. He also stated that he hoped the site would be remembered for its ""fun, lighthearted gossip,"" which, we would like to point out, unfortunately included students telling a victim of rape at Vanderbilt University she ""deserved"" it.
Juicy Campus has been a major black mark on the college community since its inception. Accused of racism, sexism and fabrication by numerous sources, the site's content ranged from the infantile to the traumatizing and vicious. We are happy to see Juicy Campus go, which at best kept university students mired in eighth-grade, livejournal-style pettiness and at worst damaged reputations and caused undeserved personal anguish.
We respect the rights of students to have their own voice and an open forum for social discussions. However, when a site based on malicious gossip abuses the right to protect contributors' anonymity, it establishes an environment in which people carelessly shirk responsibility for their comments and actions. Such an environment does not represent a forum conducive to anything remotely constructive or worthwhile, and instead creates a negative perception of college students.
Freedom of speech is an important tenant of our country and society, but we would like to remind Ivester that a ""meaningful"" reinforcement of this tenant does not come from sleazy gossip websites created to capitalize on students' most immature and vulgar tendencies. Indeed, part of free speech is about allowing people to speak anonymously, but malicious and oft untrue claims from unnamed sources don't promote the ideals behind free speech or a progressive college community.
