Colleges Struggling With the Digital Bathroom Wall 262
theodp writes "Back in the day, anonymous character assassination was confined to permanent marker scrawl in bathroom stalls. But now, thanks to sites like the student-run CollegeACB.com (ACB=Anonymous Confession Board), which can get hundreds of thousands of hits on a good day, TIME reports that anonymous slander is going viral on campus. Even the most elite universities — normally the land of the politically correct — have been struggling with the problem of anonymous gossip sites and their very un-PC posts, which an Amherst dean likens to 'the worst of junior high.' If he thinks things are bad now, wait until the kids start getting creative with Google Sidewiki."
Re:PC, huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Political correctness is just an impossible game of cat-and-mouse using weird terms until the terms become popular and you have to use newer ones, making reading older texts on subjects like psychological disabilities impossible. When you get streaks of renaming like mongolism -> Down syndrome -> trisomy 21 and stupid -> mentally retarded -> mentally challenged -> differently abled (or whatever the current one is) communicating becomes a nightmare.
Re:PC, huh? (Score:1, Informative)
The European version of Fallout 3, specifically the one released in the UK and Ireland, had three starting options for race in character customisation
1) Caucasian
2) Asian
3) African American
The minute we started the game, everybody had a good laugh about typical American ignorance. None of us were black, but I'm sure anyone in the UK who was would probably be fairly irritated by that designation. It didn't even stop there. In the UK, "Asian" refers predominantly to people south asian descent, the subcontinent. "East Asian" refers to people of Chinese or surrounding regional descent, this is what Americans refer to as "Asian".
I believe Maddox [thebestpag...iverse.net] had something to say on this very topic not so long ago.
To be fair, the whole game takes place in the former United States. Thus, the 'american ignorance' is quite correct to the game itself.
Re:PC, huh? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't have a primary source for this because it was supposedly on TV, but apparently there was a conversation between an American reporter and black British athlete Kriss Akabusi that went something like this:
"So, Kriss, what does this mean to you as an African-American?"
"I'm not American, I'm British"
"Yes, but as a British African-American ..."
"I'm not African. I'm not American. I'm British."
Re:Anonymous coward posted (Score:3, Informative)
Let's say you are a nerd. You get some verbal slaps from a few dorks, and learn to get along with it in the end. That's life, it can'te be all roses and clear sky for everyone. But while you can grudgingly accept to be called names by a few guys, you would absolutely hate to hear the same broadcasted on the school's radio. Furthermore, you would hate it more to see such aggressive texts written on a website which everyone visits and makes fun of you.
Remember American Pie and the shame of having an embarassing movie about you posted on a website? Now imagine yourself as the guy who gets the shaft.
For weaker people, this might lead to psychological problems and ultimately suicide. And there's your problem right there.
Looks like a non-issue to me. (Score:5, Informative)
So the supposed big gossip site Juicy Campus folded in February after existing for a whole year and a half. CollegeACB is some site run by an English Major out of his dorm room. If you actually GO to the site, you'll see a lot of old, outdated posts mostly people asking for gossip and very few actually providing gossip. So this is supposed to be the big problem Colleges are worried about?
This is just another lazy journalist creating a story out of nothing.
Re:Uh, no, not really (Score:3, Informative)
As a fairly recent graduate of Army Basic Combat Training, there is nothing pointless about making training courses safer. The training schedule is very very tightly packed--there is virtually no room for a soldier-in-training to get injured and keep up with his classmates. At best, the soldier will be restarted with a new unit; at worst, the soldier might get sent home for convalescence leave (paid), or if the injury is serious enough it might require separation. So if training can be made safer, that means fewer injuries and smoother training schedules.
Re:Untouchable? (Score:3, Informative)
Nice job taking that out of context. He was referring of course to the fact that in general, forum providers have not been held liable for the content posted by their users in a court of law.
FTA:
Re:futile struggle (Score:3, Informative)
The entire point of free speech and all human rights is that they can't be categorized as more or less important.
T'ain't what the courts say. Different kinds of speech have different amounts of protection. Political speech is most protected and commercial speech among the least protected.
Re:Anonymous coward posted (Score:5, Informative)
Sounds like natural selection to me.
Oh wait, that wasn't the PC thing to say. I'm sorry, should I report to the Museum of Tolerance or skip that step and go straight to Tolerance Camp?
It doesn't sound like natural selection to you if the poor kid who hangs himself in a closet is yours.
:) People tried to bully me, but my sheer irony managed to turn their rather limited attempts against me, so most gave up. Exceptions were the (in)famous sports class guys, who used their punches where their wits were powerless. Classic story, yeah I know. Yes I managed to be fine. However, I might have more empathy in me for those who get bullied.
...And let me tell you another real-life story:
I know a couple who have a kid. Back when she was pregnanti woth this kid, she was involved in a car accident and the kid had some birth defects. Now I don't know exactly what happend or how the condition is called (it's not a nice thing to avidly ask them for details), but he can't walk properly, when talking he mumbles horribly (I don't understand a word he's saying, but his parents can; they learned the hard way) and will most likely never go out by himself, meet a girl and/or procreate. He can write but the letters look like crap and are very hard to decipher. He's 12 now.
Back when he was 8, his parents attempted to send him to a public school, and for about a week or two all was fine; but one day teachers found him tucked behind a garbage container; turns out some of his colleagues mocked him, prodded him, called him names and so on. Bullied him, in a word. And they finally dumped him behind that garbage container. He refused to eat or drink, his parents had to take him to the hospital, sedate him, feed him intravenously and pray he won't die. He eventually got better. By that I mean back to what is normal for him.
So what?, would you say. Natural Selection, he'd better be off dead. Okay, but he paints. He's a bloody ARTIST, my friend. He makes art like you or I can't, and he's good at it. I've seen him do it, it's amazing. Now he's no Picasso or anything and at some points his paintings are hard to understand (my guess is he sees the world very differently from us), but it's amazing nevertheless. His parents are not interested in showing his work, they're just glad this activity makes him feel better, but when I enter their house, the walls are literally covered in his drawings. So learn this, man: not all people who can't behave like us are bound to go silently in the night.
Now teens are living by their own standards. You're successful as a teen if you got the dough, the looks and the (sometimes chemically enhanced) sexual stamina. Whoever doesn't fit the pattern likely becomes a victim, no matter the size of his brain. When I was younger, I was respected during the IT classes/exams (because I could help all others) and at parties because I know a gazillion of jokes and I'm pretty good as an amateur stand-up comedian. That's it. I wasn't welcome to join the gang when they went to see movies or in clubs. I ain't good looking, don't have the dough and even if I'm okay in bed, I had to match first two prerequisites to be able to prove the third
When I was a kid, I had a classmate who was poor. I mean, dirt-poor. he only had 3 pairs of pants, and other kids noticed. One day, they threw some god damned substance on his pants (oily stuff, can't recall what it was) and the pants were ruined. He was so ashamed that later that evening his parents caught him attempting to commit suicide (he fucking hanged himself on the outside of the window). He managed to survive and later he earned a sponsored scholarship and became a doctor in the ER in a local hospital. He saved dozens of lifes. Hell, if you have a car crash near that town, he'd be the only one able to help you (small town, one hospital) and save your life. But hey, maybe you're right, maybe he oughta be dead...
You know, it's not always about the "rig
Re:futile struggle (Score:3, Informative)
You are very funny. Have you ever been on the employer's side of the hiring process? Hiring is an incredibly risk-averse process - many candidates have the ability to do the job, so the discriminator is any real or perceived fault.
First, discrimination applies only to protected classes. These are legally defined and generally amount to age, race, gender - period. There is no law that prevents employers from refusing to hire based on other criteria, even if that criteria is completely unrelated to job performance.
Second, most hiring managers are smart enough to discriminate without leaving an incriminating trail. For example, I was verbally instructed at one job to only consider candidates under a certain age, in order to fit a corporate "image". I'm sure none of this was in writing, and the manager advising me to do this would deny it under oath. When you apply for a job, you have no idea the real reason you didn't get interviewed. When you are interviewed, you only get a vague sense of why you weren't hired ("didn't fit the corporate culture" is a common one). If you were denied a job based on anonymous libel, how would you know?
Last, I *have* served on a jury dealing with these issues. It is amazing how many potential jurors stated right out they did not believe companies should be sued for employment discrimination under any conditions (didn't you know that all these law suits are crippling the US economy?). It was also amazing how many people with this mindset actually made it on the jury.
It is very difficult and very expensive for an individual to sue under these conditions, and jurors look at *any* ( flaws in the litigant's professional behavior to rule in favor of the defense. Even if you think you have a good case, there is a good chance that a bad impression in front of a jury would dash you hopes of compensation.
Employers know how hard it is to prove discrimination, and how hard it is for individuals to win these cases against corporate litigators and HR professionals. Policies against discrimination are largely window-dressing, designed to provide plausible deniability
Re:futile struggle (Score:4, Informative)
You spend time watching 14 year old girls, on facebook?
I watch my 14 year-old daughter's interactions with her friends.