Author: john

Free speech a personal burden?

JuicyCampus champions free speech, AGs claim it’s a fraud

I have heard of JuicyCampus, but this is the first time I’ve really checked it out.

For those who have not yet had the pleasure of coming across JuicyCampus, the site serves as a public forum for college students to anonymously gossip about others. As you might imagine, this has bred an explosion in malicious, accusatory, and otherwise not-nice postings—often naming gossip victims by full name and school.

The Attorney General of New Jersey is investigating the site, but it might be a tough case.  The site’s use policy (which nobody reads) states that personal information and libelous statements cannot be posted, and that all subpoenas will be answered.  This, combined with some protection from the CDA, might give them legal protection–but the question here is extra-legal.  Would the average person go to the trouble of getting a lawyer to file a libel suit?  No.

This leaves us with a system where we rightly need to protect free speech, but because of technological change, push more people to be concerned about the law. Then again, a site that entices the user to “C’mon. Give us the juice” sounds a little like entrapment.

A Turn-it-in Story

Patry shares a good story about a high school student who risked a failing grade by not “turning it [her paper] in” to the plagiarism checking service.  He closes with an analysis I completely agree with (and even uses the correct pluralization of “bravo”):

Brava to the student, her teacher, and her supportive father. I have complained numerous times about efforts to “educate” students about copyright. Teaching students that they have to agree to whatever terms a private company imposes on them because their own school district will refuse to award a grade unless they do, teaches, in my opinion, the wrong message: first, it assumes all students are cheats; second, it teaches them that their own teachers are willing to abdicate their responsibility to private companies; and third, it teaches them their own teachers do not care what the terms imposed by those private companies are. I don’t think those are the value we want our students to learn.