Nearly a year after Pepperdine rejected the Student Government Association’s request to ban JuicyCampus on the University server, the economic crisis forced the infamous college gossip Web site to shut down on Thursday, Feb. 5.
Our growth outpaced our ability to muster the resources needed to survive the economic downturn said JuicyCampus Founder Matt Ivester in a statement released Wednesday, Feb. 4.
Although JuicyCampus faces libel suits, Ivester stressed that decreasing advertising and venture capital funding, not lawsuits, caused the site’s closure.
In January 2008, Pepperdine’s SGA voted 22 to 5 to ban JuicyCampus. Prior to the resolution, former SGA President Andy Canales sent a school-wide e-mail asking students to avoid the site. Although Pepperdine rejected SGA’s request, the university received national media attention.
With JuicyCampus’ closure, Pepperdine SGA members said they were happy finally to be rid of the site.
It was a pleasant surprise said SGA Vice President of Administration John Ceglia. [JuicyCampus] was a place of hate and anonymity.”
Student government officials across the country are also responding favorably to the site’s closure.
“I am happy that this gossip site is no longer incentivizing people to write off their friends and spread rumors said Princeton University Student Body President Connor Diemand-Yauman.
But since this past weekend, JuicyCampus.com has automatically directed visitors to a new gossip site, College Anonymous Confession Board (ACB). Students from dozens of universities, including Pepperdine, have established forums on ACB and are beginning to post new gossip.
SGA President Hunter Stanfield said he did not know about the new gossip Web site.
But Stanfield said he is not concerned about ACB, because he believes Pepperdine has moved on from cowardly anonymous rumors.
Some students said they are not surprised that a new Web site has so quickly replaced JuicyCampus.
It’s inevitable … [that] another site would come said Junior Joe Hooker. It’s a way for people to make money. People love to gossip.”
Hooker said SGA was justified in its attempt to ban JuicyCampus.
“Their effort to ban the site was noble Hooker said.
However, other students said they were happy the university chose not to ban the site.
I applauded Pepperdine for letting the students choose [whether to use the site] said Junior Sam Pike. It looks like they’re making the right choice. I guess people got tired of looking at smut and realized there wasn’t anything to it.”
Stanfield said the university rejected SGA’s proposal because banning JuicyCampus would have been inconsistent with University policy which does not ban online pornography or other Web sites that violate the student handbook. The university also did not want to appear distrustful of its students.
Some say that despite JuicyCampus’s closure the issues it raised about accountability for speech remain.
“It showed a problem in our community – it was the tip of the iceberg Stanfield said.
Diemand-Yauman said he is evaluating the conditions on Princeton’s campus that contributed to the site’s popularity.
I think that it’s important that we take a look at the social implications regarding why this site was so popular to begin with Diemand-Yauman said.
Pepperdine SGA members said they did not have any plans to follow up on the site’s closure. Although Stanfield said JuicyCampus experienced a minor revival this year as incoming freshmen posted on forums, he said the atmosphere of malicious online gossip has died out.
Other students agree.
In general I think it’s a good idea to prevent cyber bullying but I feel at Pepperdine with JuicyCampus’s closing it isn’t an issue anymore said Freshman Peter Walton.
At JuicyCampus’ peak, 500 universities had forums. But as the site diminished in popularity, it had insufficient traffic to attract advertisers. In most cases, the site made an initial burst onto a campus, and then died out after a few months.
SGA’s efforts to restrict students from visiting the site on the University server garnered Pepperdine national media attention. Canales and Maness appeared on Fox News, CNN and other news shows.
Other student governments called on administrators to ban the site. Tennessee State University and Hampton University restricted access to JuicyCampus.com.
But other colleges took a different approach.
Diemand-Yauman launched the Own What You Think” campaign at Princeton to combat malicious gossip while maintaining thoughtful discourse. It allows students to sign a petition against “anonymous character assassination derogatory messages and spiteful words.
The Own What You Think” campaign spread to 10 other schools. Stanfield did not express interest in adopting the campaign.
