Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

New Web site dishes all the 'juicy' details
By M. Aasin Pena
Daily Targum, Rutgers
October 08, 2008

Usually when rumors spread around a campus as large as Rutgers’, the source can be difficult to locate. But thanks to a new Web site, JuicyCampus.com, finding out who said what just got a lot harder.

The Web site allows students to post information about their peers online. Topics range from who is the hottest girl at a university to who is the biggest creep. Other students can then post replies and vote on whether they agree or disagree with the original poster’s comments on the individual.

The catch is that all information is posted anonymously so students are never able to find out who said what.

One anonymous student who was written about on JuicyCampus.com said it is ridiculous that this sort of thing is allowed to happen.

“I definitely do not like that people can just tarnish any other person’s reputation without even leaving their name, and I do not believe the [federal government] should allow people to post full names,” he said. “Another thing is that a lot of the things said are not even true.”

He said the people running the Web site will not even listen to university presidents who request that student names be taken off the list.

“Only through a subpoena would the Web site be forced to have any individual’s names removed, which is unacceptable,” he said.

Founded by President and CEO Matt Ivester in October 2007, JuicyCampus.com is now expanding to more than 500 campuses in the United States, including Stanford University, Virginia Tech and Rutgers.

Ivester said JuicyCampus.com is just bringing gossip into the Web that would have been talked about anyway.

“This is the same gossip that used to happen offline,” Ivester said. “As college students spend more time on the Internet, it should be no surprise that gossip is moving online.”

Ivester said after graduating from Duke University, he began pondering ideas for starting a business on the Internet.

One of the things he said he loved in college was the constant gossip around campus, so he decided to try making a Web site where people could come together to do just that.

One benefit that students have is protection from being found out about on the Web site because search engines are blocked from accessing the site. Only by looking through the JuicyCampus.com is one able to get all the juicy information, according to the Web site.

In the frequently asked questions section of the Web site, people who demand censorship are told ironically that China allows censors and are directed to a link with information about the Chinese green card policy.

“There is a huge demand for a site where students can discuss the topics that interest them most in the manner they deem most appropriate,” Ivester said. “Despite all of the controversy, we’ve decided to keep JuicyCampus true to its roots: anonymous and uncensored.”

Despite Ivester’s views, the Web site has had troubles in the state of New Jersey.

The N.J. Department of Law and Public Safety has been looking into JuicyCampus.com since last March to decide whether it violates the N.J. Consumer Fraud Act. Since users are allowed to post anonymously, it may be deemed as unconscionable commercial practices, according to the New Jersey government Web site.

“Misrepresentations to the public by businesses violates our Consumer Fraud Act,” Attorney General Anne Milgram said. “JuicyCampus.com must honor the terms and conditions that it informs the public it will adhere to.”

Despite gaining such notoriety, many students had not even heard of the Web site, and the few that had heard of it did not think highly of it.

Rutgers College senior Daanish Khan said the site is simply a place for people to talk a lot of nonsense without any basis.

“It seems like the Web site is full of stupid crap and that people who post on it are pretty shallow,” Khan said. “It paints an unappealing picture of college life for the students.”

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