It might not be juicy, but it is serious: A group of University students recently gathered to discuss concerns about the college gossip Web site Juicy Campus, and now Student Council is considering action against the site.
Alexandra Arango, co-chair of the Resident Staff Program, said she coordinated a small meeting on the steps of the Rotunda Sunday afternoon, during which she and other concerned students discussed the Web site. She said the meeting attracted several student leaders who wanted to take action against the gossip site.
"Groups of students were quite motivated to talk about the situation," Arango said. "The conversation was coming up in resident life because of a number of [issues and] quite a bit of gossip."
The group discussed several possibilities for mitigating the effects of Juicy Campus, Arango said. One idea, she said, is encouraging students to sign a pledge not to read or post on Juicy Campus.
"Visiting the site is promoting it" and is therefore just as bad as posting on it, Arango said.
Another idea the group discussed, Arango explained, is petitioning Facebook to prohibit Juicy Campus advertisements on its site. Arango said the success of such a petition is a possibility, citing a recent case in which Google prohibited Juicy Campus advertisements. According to Arango, students at Pepperdine University petitioned the search engine to do so, claiming Juicy Campus violated Google's terms of service. Arango, noting that Facebook still allows Juicy Campus advertisements, said a similar petition, even if it does not focus on Facebook's terms of service, may make Facebook aware of the negative effects of Juicy Campus and persuade the social-networking site to prohibit the advertisements.
Arango said Council President Matt Schrimper attended the event and, as a result, she hopes Council will take some sort of action against the Web site, specifically through a Council petition condemning the use of Juicy Campus.
Schrimper confirmed Council is interested in taking action against Juicy Campus and said Council will discuss possible ways of addressing the site at today's meeting.
According to a Council press release, College Rep. Sam Davies drafted a resolution calling for the very actions Arango hoped for.
"Upon passing this resolution, Council will immediately contact facebook.com to ask that they stop advertising Juicy Campus to the UVA network, and we will contact Juicy Campus to formally declare that the University does not wish to have its name associated with their website in any form," the release stated. "After assessing the response from juicycampus.com, facebook.com, and the University community, Student Council will reexamine the need for a more vocal and publicized campaign against this hurtful and ill-intentioned website."
The student body, furthermore, is urged by Council to boycott Juicy Campus, the release stated.
The release also stated that community members are welcome to attend the "community concerns" portion of the open Council meeting tonight at 6, which will specifically focus on the site the Council release called home to slanderous, insensitive and malicious remarks that "are in no way conducive to the principles of honor and dignity upon which the University was founded."
Any type of action on behalf of Council seeking to ban Juicy Campus from the University, however, may not meet tremendous success. According to Molly Drobnick, senior public relations specialist at Pepperdine University, Pepperdine's Student Council also passed a resolution asking the administration to block Juicy Campus from that campus' network. The ban, however, never went into effect because although the administration agreed with the spirit of the resolution, the university maintained that students have the right to visit whichever Web sites they want.
"It's a free marketplace, and it's up to every individual to make the best decision about the sites they visit ... Rather than ban the site, we want to encourage people to invest their time wisely," Drobnick said.
Looking beyond Student Council, Arango said she also hopes to gain the support of other student organizations. She noted that the group of students who met Sunday discussed how posting to Juicy Campus might fall under the jurisdiction of the honor system. Arango admitted, though, that it may be difficult to push that issue further, given the anonymous nature of the posts and the potential legal implications.
"Most of [the meeting] was general discussion on the impact that Juicy Campus has had, and what other schools have done," Arango said, adding that the concern about Juicy Campus is "a real community movement" and that the preliminary meeting was designed to "just to get people talking -- in a good way"
Read More
Graduating students share their future plans as they enter the job market
By Nina Broderick | 9 hours agoMany students find the Career Center to be a valuable tool during the job search and application process.
U.Va.’s Finals Weekend spotlights the achievement and service of the Class of 2025
By Leigh Bailey | 2 days agoIn University President Jim Ryan’s welcome address, he acknowledged the support of family members and friends present in the audience and beyond that played supportive roles in these graduates’ lives.
Students reflect on the election of first American pope
By Bertie Azqueta | 3 days agoCatholic students on Grounds expressed surprise about Leo’s election.
