For years the attendance at those events was quite sparse but interest started to pick up about three years ago after all the publicity of supposed predators on MySpace. Even though that “predator panic” turned out to be greatly exaggerated, there remains a fairly strong interest by parents wanting to know how to keep their kids safe online.

Of course, I’m all in favor of kids being safe and delighted that parents are expressing an interest in their children’s well being, but I think it may be time to put an end to school Internet safety nights. What we need instead are parent workshops dedicated to how kids are using interactive technology.

Call it Tech Parenting 2.0 or perhaps just “get a clue.” Whatever you call it, it’s time to put Internet safety into a larger context. And instead of mostly using police officers (as is often the case) or even “Internet safety experts” like me as presenters, they should get the kids involved. Almost every time I’ve listened to teens talk about how they use technology, I come away impressed and informed.

And we certainly don’t need an expert to read off a list of dos and don’t. Parents should instead be encouraged to understand how their kids are using technology – not to block it or control it — but to embrace it and explore it with them so that they can better engage in a family conversation about the use and misuse of technology.

Internet safety can’t be taught in a vacuum anymore than you can teach “book safety” or “pencil safety,” though I’m willing to bet that more people have been injured by sharp pencils than by the Internet.

What keeps young people safe online is not so much learning to regurgitate a set of adult prescribed rules, but empowering them to protect themselves by teaching critical thinking, media literacy and online ethics.

Critical thinking can also go a long way towards helping kids avoid risky or aggressive behavior by helping them think through the implications of their actions. Whether it’s posting something that could embarrass them later or saying something hurtful to a peer.

Media literacy includes knowing how to take advantage of good information that is coming at you while learning how to use the filter in your brain to avoid that which is incorrect, incomplete, irrelevant, harmful or just plain stupid. It can be as complex as teaching kids to evaluate the credibility of sources or as simple as learning how to distinguish between truth and those all-too-common “urban myths” that float around the Internet.

When it comes to digital ethics, we need to work with kids to treat themselves and others with respect. That means treating others as they want to be treated which obviously includes avoiding bullying and harassing others.

Like technology itself, Internet safety has to evolve. Back in 1994, when I wrote the first widely disseminated Internet safety publication, I advised parents not to let kids put personal information or photos online and — because of what turned out to be an exaggerated fear of predators — I urged them to avoid online conversations with strangers. Back then, along with trying to keep kids away from porn, Internet safety was mostly about protecting children from dangerous adults.

But starting around 2005, a new phase of the Web — often referred to as “Web 2.0″ — prompted some Internet safety advocates to focus on ways kids could get in trouble for what they post on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. It was in that year that Anne Collier and I founded BlogSafety.org (later renamed ConnnectSafely.org) so we could provide a forum for discussing safety issues on the Web. It was also around that time that politicians and the media, especially the TV show “To Catch a Predator,” started whipping up fears of predators trolling the Web for vulnerable children.

But after carefully reviewing available research, statistics show that the likelihood of a young person being harmed by an online stranger is quite rare, and sexual solicitations and harassment are most often from peers. And to the extent it has occurred, it affects teens, not young children. Based on studies by the Crimes Against Children Research Center, the overwhelming majority of crimes against youths continue to take place in the “real world,” mostly by adults known to the child.

But that doesn’t mean that the Internet is a risk-free zone. It’s just that young people are far more likely to be harmed by other youth or the consequences of their own online behavior than by adult criminals.

Their interactions are largely with people they know from the real world. As danah boyd (she prefers a lower case d & b) observed in her doctoral dissertation, Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics (PDF), “teen participation in social network sites is driven by their desire to socialize with peers. Their participation online is rarely divorced from offline peer culture; teens craft digital self-expressions for known audiences and they socialize almost exclusively with people they know.”

This understanding of youth risk led to a whole new phase of Internet safety education focusing on such things as cyberbullying and urging youth to avoid posting material that could be embarrassing or get them into trouble with authorities and potential future employers. Recently, the focus has turned to the emotional and legal consequences of “sexting,” — kids sending nude pictures of themselves via cell phones or the Web. But Anne Collier observed in NetFamilyNews.org, we run the risk of “technopanics” over sexting and bullying.

What we’ve learned from observing how kids use the Net, mobile phones, gaming devices and other interactive technology is that there is really no distinction between online and offline behaviors. Technology is woven into their lives. They don’t go online, they ARE online. So it’s really about youth safety — not Internet safety.

It’s about helping young people make wise choices not just in how they use technology but in how they live their lives. Internet safety is more than just the absence of danger. It also includes finding ways to use technology for learning, collaboration, community building, political activism, self-help and reaching out to others.

These are not just philosophical arguments. They’re pragmatic because preaching about safety or trying lock down the Internet doesn’t protect kid. Trying to instill fear — especially based on myths — actually increases danger because it causes kids to tune out good advice.

Sure, there are technologies that can keep kids from using social networking services or visiting inappropriate Web sites. But, like fences around swimming pools, the use of filters at home and school can’t protect them forever. That’s why we teach kids to swim. Not only does knowing how to swim help prevent drowning, it empowers them to thrive in the water instead of fearing it. The same is true with technology. As kids mature into teens, we must pull back on the technological controls in favor of self-control.

In an email interview, Dr. Larry Rosen, Professor of Psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills and author of Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation observed, “sadly, too many parents think that using technology to track their children’s keystrokes or restrict access to certain websites is sufficient parenting. It is not. Parents must be involved with their children’s virtual lifestyles developing trust, being aware of any potential problems, learning about the technologies they use, and communicating often.”

WASHINGTON — Last year, Congress passed the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act,which called for yet another committee to study Internet safety. By statute, the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG) is made up of representatives of the business community, public interest groups and federal agencies. I’m on the committee as co-director of the nonprofit ConnectSafely.org.  ConnectSafely co-director and NetFamilyNews editor Anne Collier serves as co-chairman along with MySpace cheif security officer, Hemanshu Nigam.

The group, which reports to the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, is totally unfunded. The government wasn’t even able to buy us lunch, let alone plane tickets to Washington. But I’m not complaining. It’s an honor to have even a small role in helping to shape national Internet safety policy.

To be honest, I was a bit skeptical when I first heard about the working group, wondering why we needed yet another committee to look at this topic. In 2000, the “COPA Commission,” created by the Children’s Online Protection Act of 1998, issued a very comprehensive report, and last year I was privileged to serve on the Internet Safety Technical Task Force — created by attorneys general of nearly every state.

The task force issued a report debunking myths about Internet safety, concluding that kids are more at risk from other kids than from so-called Internet predators. That finding was rejected by several of the state attorneys general who received it. South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster said the report’s findings were “as disturbing as they are wrong,” adding that “the conclusions in this report create a troubling false sense of security on the issue of child Internet safety.”

But I think the report was both accurate and insightful. It recognized that Internet safety is too complicated to be reduced to sound bites and sensationalist TV shows, and that most of the kids who get in trouble online also get in trouble offline. The Internet may amplify dangers, but it doesn’t create them.

I’m not aware of any federal Internet safety commissions that met during the Bush administration. From what I can tell, that administration paid very little attention to Internet safety other than to add to the exaggerations and fear-mongering about so-called Internet predators.

So is there any point in taking yet another look at Internet safety? Yes, if only because things have changed dramatically over the past few months. To begin with, we have a new administration led by a president who actually understands the Internet as well as the constitutional issues that arise whenever government tries to control online speech, access or even safety.

When the new working group convened Thursday, our first speaker was Susan Crawford, who works at the White House as special assistant to the president for science, technology and innovation policy. A law professor and founder of OneWebDay, Crawford brings a refreshing understanding of the government’s need to balance safety and security with civil liberties, privacy and even the First Amendment rights of minors.

Her opening remarks helped set the tone for the group by admonishing us to “avoid overheated rhetoric about risks to kids online,” pointing out that “risks kids face online may not be significantly different than the risks they face offline.”

She also reminded us that “the risks are more subtle than the press would have us believe,” and that we need to avoid trying to find “silver bullets” and recommending policy based on “anecdotes.” Finally she pointed out that we need to be careful to avoid “tech mandates.” While the working group will research the efficacy of technology tools to help protect kids, Crawford repeated something that I have been saying for 12 years: “The best software (to protect kids) is between the ears,” not on a device.

The working group will be divided into four subcommittees: child pornography reporting, data retention, protection technology and education. I will chair the education subcommittee and look forward to hearing from companies, educators, nonprofits and anyone else who has ideas about how to educate America’s youth to keep on using the Internet productively and safely. If you have ideas, please feel free to share them.

Thanks to a new service, you may not have to ask or answer that question. Glympse, which launched on Monday, joins Loopt and Google Latitude as the newest location-based service that uses cell phones’ GPS capability to tell people where you are.

Glympse, which is free, has taken a different approach. Unlike Loopt, which requires the sender and recipient to sign up for service and download an application, Glympse requires almost no effort on the part of the person who is following you. All they have to do is click on a Web link on a computer or a Web- enabled phone to see where you are on a map.

To transmit your location, you need to download an application to your phone and use the application to send a “Glympse,” which authorizes that person to follow you for a specific amount of time and send them the link they need to see you on a map.

Another way it differs from both Loopt and Google Latitude is that Glympse can automatically time out after tracking someone for four hours. The person being followed can also choose a shorter monitoring window, like 30 minutes.

To its credit, Loopt is also permission-based and sends reminders that you may be sharing your real-time information. Google’s Latitude service, which also requires you to give permission to be followed, only displays your approximate location — within about a half mile — but doesn’t show precisely where you are.

With Glympse, you might not know the person’s exact address, but you’ll probably be within a hundred feet.

The coolest thing about Glympse is when you are following someone on the move. You can pinpoint them on the map, see their speed, and see when and where they stop.

I used it to follow Glympse co-founder Bryan Trussle as he rode in a car from my house to San Jose. I saw him get on and off the freeway and pull into a parking lot. At one point I caught his car’s driver exceeding the speed limit by a few miles an hour.

As he compared his actual location to what I saw on my PC, we found there only a slight lag between the two — a difference of 10 seconds on average.

While I realize that some will consider this technology a little creepy, there are practical uses for it.

Some police departments, delivery services and businesses spend a lot of money on equipment to do what Glympse could do for free.

For one thing, it can reassure parents and family members that their loved ones are safe.

I remember how nervous I was when my 16-year-old daughter would use the car or ride in other kids’ cars. We’d insist that she call us when she arrived and made her tell us where she planned to go. If she had a Glympse-equipped cell phone, we could have checked in on her from time to time — and we would have known if she was speeding too.

And rather than calling people to let them know you’re arriving in 15 minutes, they can track you online or on a Web-enabled phone.

The Glympse’s public beta currently works only on the T-Mobile G1, which uses Google’s Android operating system. The company is working on versions for the iPhone, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry.

Disclosure: Glympse, as well as its main competitors, Loopt and Google, are supporters of ConnectSafely.org, a nonprofit Internet safety organization I help operate.

SafeKids.com’s Larry Magid spoke with the report’s co-author, Adam Thierer.

The podcast is posted at News.com

Even if you are comfortable with the person receiving the image, you never know for sure where else it might land. Digital images are easy to copy and forward and, even if you trust your friend’s discretion, it can be accidentally forwarded or seen by others with access to your friend’s phone or computer. It’s not uncommon for such images to find their way to other people’s cell phones and even Web pages, where they can be seen by anyone, copied, searched for and redistributed, perhaps forever.

For minors, there’s another risk — serious legal consequences. Creating, transmitting and even possessing a nude, semi-nude or sexually explicit image of a minor can be considered child pornography. It can be prosecuted as a state or federal felony and can even lead to having to register as a sex offender.

Crazy as it seems, some prosecutors have gone after kids for taking and sending pictures of themselves. There was a case in Florida a couple of years ago where a teenage boy and girl photographed themselves nude and engaged in “unspecified sexual behavior.” One kid sent the picture to the other and somehow the police got involved. They were tried and convicted for production and distribution of child porn and the teen who received the image had the additional charge of possession. An appeals court upheld the convictions.

In January this year, three teenage girls from Pennsylvania were charged for creating child porn and the three boys who received the images were charged for possessing it. And, according to CBS News, a Texas eighth-grader in October spent a night in jail after a coach found a nude picture on his cell phone, sent by another student.

It’s sadly ironic that the very child porn laws that were written to protect children from being exploited by adults could wind up having a devastating impact on the lives of children who, while acting stupid, have no criminal intent. For some perspective on whether this issue is or isn’t overblown, see Anne Collier’s piece in NetFamily News.

It’s hard to know how prevalent the practice is. But if you believe the results of an online survey commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, about 22 percent of teenage girls and 18 percent of boys admit to having “electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude pictures or video of themselves.” I’m not completely confident about the results of this study, which was carried out by a market research firm and not subject to academic peer review. But I think it’s fair to assume that a significant number of kids are doing this.

Perhaps more interesting than the survey’s overall number is the breakdown of why teens take and send these pictures. Of those who reportedly sent such pictures, 71 percent of girls and 67 percent of boys said they sent or posted content to a boyfriend or girlfriend, while 21 percent of the girls and 39 percent of the boys say they sent it to someone they wanted to date.

As you might expect, peer pressure plays a role. Of those who sent such content, 51 percent of teen girls cited “pressure from a guy,” while 18 percent of teen boys blamed pressure from girls.

While sexting is troubling, I think it’s important for us all to take a deep breath and refrain from passing new laws or using child pornography laws that were designed to protect children from exploitation by adults.

I suspect that sexting will diminish over time. Kids aren’t stupid and, faced with the facts, most will wise up. We also know that kids who get in trouble online are the same kids who get in trouble offline, so when teens repeatedly do sexting or other stupid or risky things online, it’s important to intervene early and often.

The best thing for a parent to do is to have a non-confrontational conversation — perhaps over dinner — to ask your kids if they’ve heard about sexting and what they think about it. You might not get a straight answer but you’ll open up a dialog that can go a long way toward helping your kids understand how to minimize legal, social and reputation risks. There are more tips on ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety site I help operate.

Boy, am I glad the Internet and camera phones weren’t around when I was a kid.

These settings can be modified, but most of them can only be tightened. With a few exceptions, you don’t even have the option to make a lot of your information available to the public at large. One exception is media files such as photos and videos, which, by default, can be viewed by “everyone.” But you can use privacy settings to restrict who can see your photos all the way down to specific friends or even “only me.”

Video – How to configure settings

Mouse over to privacy settings

Start by hovering your mouse over the “Settings” tab near the upper-right corner and select Privacy Settings. There you’ll find options to control who can see your profile as well as other information about you, such as your “personal info,” status updates, photos, videos tagged of you, and who your friends are. You can control who can see your profile within Facebook and you can turn off access to public search engines such as Google. There are plenty of other settings, including ones to control who can write on your wall and who can comment on notes, photos, or other elements of your site.
Settings vary according to what you’re trying to control and, because of the confusing user interface, you might have to hunt around a bit. For example, to change the privacy settings on your own photo albums within the Privacy Settings area you would have to find the fine print under Photos Tagged of You that says “Edit Photo Albums Privacy Settings” or navigate from the Applications tray at the bottom left corner of your browser. That “privacy wizard” they’re working on can’t come a moment too soon.

Another relatively unknown feature is the ability to create multiple friends lists and assign different privileges to people on different lists. For example, if you want only certain people to know your cell phone number you can create a list like “good friends” and another called “colleagues” to make that information available only to people on those lists. You can create lists by clicking on the Friends tab on the blue navigation bar and then clicking on “Make a New List” in the left column.

Third party applications

Be especially careful when it comes to third-party applications. For example, I use an application from Eye-Fi that automatically syncs my photos to Facebook and Flickr through my Wi-Fi network. When I review cameras, I often take ugly and stupid test pictures and, if I’m not careful, those pictures can be automatically loaded to my Facebook page for everyone to see. But my most embarrassing moment was about a year ago, when I tried out the New York Times Quiz on a day I hadn’t read the paper, only to have my low score posted for all my Facebook friends to see, including my editor at The New York Times.

Regardless of how you configure your privacy settings, there is a reality of the social Web that can’t be configured away. Any digital information that is posted can be copied, captured, cached, forwarded, and reposted by anyone who has access to it. Even if some embarrassing photo or information is up for only a few minutes, there is the possibility that someone might copy it and send it around. And–as many people are painfully aware–friends can become ex-friends. So even if you’re reasonably careful about who you let on your page, you never know what they might do with the information you post.

Child Safety on the Information Highway
Child Safe Search
Family Contract for Online Safety
Online Safety Quiz (for pre-teens)

Tips from ConnectSafely.org
How to Prevent Sexting
Cell Phone Safety Tips
Tips to Stop Cyberbullying
How to Recognize Grooming
Social Web Safety Tips for Teens

Visit our sister sites: ConnectSafely, SafeTeens & NetFamilyNews ]]> http://www.safekids.com/2009/02/15/tools-for-families/feed/ 0 http://www.safekids.com/2009/02/11/predator-panic-a-risky-distraction/ http://www.safekids.com/2009/02/11/predator-panic-a-risky-distraction/#comments Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:19:01 +0000 larrymagid http://safekids.com/?p=173 by Larry Magid

I’ve been an Internet safety advocate since 1993 and right now I’m discouraged and angry about what’s going on in this field.

I’m angry because people who ought to know better are trying to mislead the public with false information about online risks, which is diverting attention away from real risks. And I’m not alone.

Many respected online safety organizations and leading youth-risk researchers are trying to shift the discussion away from mostly predator danger to youth behavior risk. Thanks to some politicians, it’s an uphill battle.

Online safety groups and public officials should be spending our time educating families on how to avoid real risks that affect most kids – like bullying, harassment and unwanted exposure to inappropriate material. We also need to do a better job of identifying and reaching the small minority of “at risk” kids who are putting themselves at greater risk by the way they behave online.

At issue is the constant drumbeat of predator panic coming from state attorneys general, including Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, who are co-chairs of the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking, which represents attorneys general from 49 states. Although their rhetoric is purported to help protect young people from harm, the actual impact of their campaign to rid social networks of predators may be inadvertently putting young people at greater risk.

In addition to shifting attention away from more common online dangers, they have proposed the use of age-verification and parental controls which could actually increase risk by driving teens “underground,” possibly to overseas sites that are far more dangerous than sites like MySpace and Facebook.

What’s more, all the hoopla is disrupting the work of several of the most respected non-profit Internet safety organizations which, ironically, have to spend resources countering this misleading information at the cost of focusing on how to help young people use the Internet more safely.

A bit of background

For more than two years, these and other elected officials have been talking about predator dangers on MySpace and other social networking sites and calling for the use of age-verification technology to help separate minors from adults. A year ago, the working group of attorneys general entered an agreement with MySpace to form a task force to study the issue.

After months of careful consideration, including a review of all research, the task force came back with a report that questioned the prevalence of predator danger and also questioned both the desirability and effectiveness of using any single technology to verity the age of users. Instead of carefully considering the report, it was rejected out of hand.

The justice officers’ reaction to the report was best summed up by Blumenthal, who recently said it was, “based on outdated and incomplete data – falsely downplaying the threat of predators on social networking sites.”

I have a great deal of respect for much of the work that Blumenthal, Cooper and other attorneys general do for public safety and to protect consumers, but when it comes to Internet safety, they continue to rely on anecdotal evidence rather than available peer-reviewed academic research (PDF).

Disclosure: I served on the task force as co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from several Internet and social networking companies including MySpace and Facebook. I also served as a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force and am the founder of SafeKids.com.

Now there’s a new argument based on the disclosure last week that MySpace has evicted 90,000 registered sex offenders from its roles. In a press release, Blumenthal said, “This shocking revelation – resulting from our subpoena – provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain rife with sexual predators.”

But what Blumenthal failed to point out is that 90,000 is not the number of currently or recently evicted registered sex offenders (RSOs) on MySpace, but a cumulative number based on all the RSO’s MySpace has ejected since two years ago when it adopted technology to identify and remove them from its roles.

Facebook, too

In the meantime, Facebook has been under attack for its own reported predator problem. Tech Crunch ran a story last week with the headline “Thousands Of MySpace Sex Offender Refugees Found On Facebook.” It reportedly got the information from John Cardillo, CEO of Sentinel, the security company that helps MySpace and other social networking sites identify registered sex offenders so they can be removed.

Facebook is not one of Sentinel’s customers, but says that it employs other methods to attempt to identify registered sex offenders and others who might endanger its members. This includes relying on Facebook members and working directly with state databases and state attorneys general, according to Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.

But, the attorneys general who are screaming about predators don’t seem to have information about specific individuals harming children. Facebook, according to Schnitt, “is not aware of a single case where a registered sex offender has contacted a minor through Facebook.”

The same is true on MySpace. According to MySpace chief security officer Hemanshu Nigam, “not one of the deleted MySpace offenders has ever been prosecuted for criminal misconduct with a teen on MySpace.”

Based on surveys with teens, I suspect that this is largely because the vast majority of teens are savvy enough to avoid these creeps. As you would expect, officials from both Facebook and MySpace say that they are doing all they can to rid their sites of registered sex offenders.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’ll be 100% successful. Short of shutting down their services, I can’t think of anything that can be done to completely eliminate even registered sex offenders, let alone the much larger number of offenders who haven’t been caught and convicted.

They’re everywhere

At the risk of contributing to the paranoia, it’s important to point out sex offenders are also in the real world. Unless we decide to keep them in jail forever, they are going to be among us. They go to malls, they shop at grocery stores, they live in neighborhoods and many have jobs. I know for a fact that there are registered sex offenders living within walking distance from my house and I have no doubt that my children have encountered them in the real world.

And then there are the ones who haven’t been caught. It’s a known fact that some of them teach in our schools, patrol our streets, preach in our places of worship, work in our hospitals and clinics, and coach our kids.

What’s worse, family members, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center, account for “a quarter to a third of offenders.” Strangers make up the smallest group with estimates ranging between 7 and 25 percent.

Strangers who meet their victims on the Internet represent an extremely small percentage of all cases, especially compared to family members. It’s analogous to worrying about being killed in a plane crash instead of focusing on driving safely. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children is one of several safety organizations that no longer condone the use of the phrase “stranger danger.”

As I’ve pointed out in previous articles, researchers who study sexual assault cases have found very few actual cases of children being sexually molested as a result of a contact they made on the Internet. It happens, but it happens in far fewer numbers than other forms of sexual abuse. And when it does happen, it is almost always a case of a teenager who is taking extraordinary risks online, including – in most cases – engaging in sexual conversation with a person known to be an adult.

I’m not saying this to place blame on the victims or excuse illegal behavior of some adults, but rather to point out that how young people behave online affects their risk.

It’s time that all of us – politicians too – start looking for real solutions and talking with real experts, not just relying on anecdotal data and provocative sound bites.

For more perspective, check out CNET News’ Caroline McArthy’s post on this subject.

]]> http://www.safekids.com/2009/02/11/predator-panic-a-risky-distraction/feed/ 0 http://www.safekids.com/2009/01/19/good-riddance-to-juicy-campus/ http://www.safekids.com/2009/01/19/good-riddance-to-juicy-campus/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:18:55 +0000 larrymagid http://www.safekids.com/?p=285 I’m almost always saddened by news of businesses being forced to close because of the economy, but I’m glad to see the apparent demise of JuicyCampus.com.

The site, according to a blog post from its founder Matt Ivester, is shutting down because “in these historically difficult economic times, online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved.”

I’m not shedding any tears for Mr. Ivester. What he refers to as “lighthearted gossip of college life” was, in many situations, vicious innuendos, hateful messages, and downright lies. In covering the site for CBSNews.com, I saw postings that went so far as to call someone a willing slut and publish her cell phone number and address.

Last year, Ashley Rose, a junior at the University of California, Irvine, told CBS News’ The Early Show about a posting on the site that said she had “engaged in oral sex with four men in one evening.” Ms. Rose said she was able to deal with these innuendos because, “people who are friends with me know the truth about the type of person that I am.”

I’m a strong believer in free speech and perhaps JuicyCampus did have a First Amendment right to encourage people to anonymously post whatever they wanted to say about others, but just because something might be legal doesn’t mean it’s good. In looking at the site last year I saw postings that were sexist, racist, hateful, and homophobic. Maybe they were just online versions of fraternity pranks but, whatever they were, I think the net is better off without them.

It’s no wonder that some student government associations, according to the Associated Press, asked their administration to ban the site from campus networks. It’s not often that students call for banning speech, but even though I’m not sure I agree that that was the best tactic, it was certainly understandable.

Goodbye JuicyCampus. May you never return.