The Web site JuicyCampus.com, a popular yet controversial forum for anonymous college gossip, shut down last Thursday due to financial difficulties. A similar blog called the College Anonymous Confession Board (ACB) has replaced Juicy Campus, providing unrestricted message boards for students nationwide.
Since its inception in 2007, opponents have faulted Juicy Campus for spreading targeted and damaging rumors. Criticism did not diminish the Web site's popularity among college students though; instead, Juicy Campus grew to reach over one million readers on more than 500 campuses nationwide before its discontinuation.
Juicy Campus, while it was online, provided a forum for anonymous postings on a variety of campus-related topics.
Despite the site's wide viewership, it experienced a decrease in revenue from online advertisers and a dearth of venture capital.
"Juicy Campus' exponential growth outpaced our ability to muster the resources needed to survive this economic downturn," Juicy Campus Founder and CEO Matt Ivester said in a statement.
Ivester called Juicy Campus "a place for the fun, lighthearted gossip of college life."
"It's clear that we have provided a platform that students have found interesting, entertaining, and fun," he said.
Still, Ivester admitted that the site had included "mean-spirited posts and personal attacks."
Although the 1996 Communications Decency Act shielded Juicy Campus' creators from legal responsibility for the site's content, Juicy Campus faced both censorship and legal challenges during its less than two years in existence, with multiple parties seeking redress after reading posts.
Tennessee State University successfully blocked Juicy Campus on its university network, and the New Jersey Attorney General's Office began to investigate whether the Web site and one of its advertisers had violated the Garden State's Consumer Fraud Act.
The URL JuicyCampus.com now automatically redirects to the College ACB Web site, which, like its predecessor, has separate posting forums for colleges across the country. Posters to the College ACB board for Tufts have started around 50 discussion threads since October, a number of which were created after Juicy Campus' closing.
Juicy Campus and the College ACB have professed similar missions, but the differences between the two are "more than superficial," Peter Frank, the owner and manager of the College ACB, said in a statement. He said the College ACB includes self-regulatory measures, allowing users to flag content they find offensive or dangerous.
Frank, a freshman at Wesleyan University, also emphasized the College ACB's focus on substantive content. "We wish to promote deep and thoughtful discussion as well as the occasional ‘gossipy' post," he said.
The College ACB aims to establish a conversation space for students without traditional social constraints or restrictions. "It is the campus center, the dorm room, the cafeteria, and the lecture hall, all combined into a single, easily accessible forum where everyone is invited to converse openly, without fear of reprisal or reprimand," Frank said.
Tufts students who frequented Juicy Campus had mixed reactions to its closure.
"On one hand, I think it's a positive change because there [were] a lot of really hurtful things written," freshman Sarah Rauh said. "Selfishly, though, I enjoyed reading it because it was entertaining."
Some students held negative opinions about Juicy Campus even if they had not visited the site.
"I never went on it because I thought it was just a bunch of mean and unfounded gossip that I didn't really care about," senior Rachel Chervin said. "I don't think it's a great loss."
"I'm glad to hear it's hit the dead pool," junior John Sotherland said. "I've never visited it because it was an abhorrent site with no meaningful purpose."
Sotherland, a computer science major, criticized the Web site's design and structure.
"I didn't think the way the site was set up was conducive to anything but insults," Sotherland added. "When you can say anything anonymously and when the site itself is called ‘juicy' … it invites mean-spirited discourse."
Others had more neutral secondhand opinions about Juicy Campus.
"I've personally never been on Juicy Campus," freshman Susan Colt said. "But I know it was the highlight of many people's days."
Carter Rogers and Ben Gittleson contributed reporting to this article.
