Juicy Campus Founder Defends His Controversial Web Site
Site Founder Matt Ivester: 'I Absolutely Do Not Feel Guilty'
I think that the best evidence of a positive response has been that since we launched just a year ago, we've gotten almost 15,000 requests from students asking us to add their campus. And we get e-mails all the time from students saying "please come to my campus, there's all this great juicy gossip," "you would do so well here." And, you know, actually, we got an e-mail last week that got passed on to me -- and I don't remember the exact wording -- but it was something like, the person signed it "Oppressed Student" and it said, "Our school administration is threatening to expel people if they use Juicy Campus and, you know, I believe in the right to anonymous speech and this is ridiculous. Thank you so much for coming to my campus."
Well, going off of that, actually, on our campus there have been some rumors that the university officials [at Syracuse] might be planning on banning the site from our wireless networks, though we have not been able to confirm this. How fair do you think that is?
You know, I'd be really surprised if any institution of higher education decided to ban Juicy Campus. ... A legitimate institution, I just don't think would do it, it's so counter to the principles of education and free speech. I mean, there's nothing on Juicy Campus except speech. And so, to make some sort of special exception to disallow a Web site like ours would be so oppressive. We tell people, every once and awhile they say that they want us to censor our Web site or they want to ban Juicy Campus -- we liken it to China. In China, they censor the Internet and I'd be surprised if any institution of higher education really wants to join the ranks of China and other countries that censor the Internet.
So. you haven't actually seen any schools ban the site yet, right?
No, there have been a couple schools that have had student governments vote to ban the site but, to my knowledge, administrators have said "you know what, censorship is a really slippery slope, we don't want to do that, there are a hundred ways around any block that they can come up with" and, really, the most responsible administrators -- the most forward thinking ones -- say "hey, you know what, this is an opportunity for us as an institution to tackle an emerging issue, which is what is and is not appropriate speech online. Because this is, you know, it's the Internet age and this is a new issue that we need to educate our students on."
Going along with that, do you have any fears that there might be some new legislation passed? ... The Internet is so new, are you afraid that new legislation might block your site, take it down or do you feel like you're safe?
Well, I can tell you this: I would be very surprised if any legislation was directly targeted against Juicy Campus. I can tell you this: We are 100 percent confident that everything we are doing is within the current laws. And, of course, new laws will emerge, and we'll have to adapt our site accordingly. You know, one of the most relevant things I can think of right now is the presidential election. And, to my knowledge, neither candidate is talking about changing Section 230 [of the Communications Decency Act of 1996], and both candidates are in favor of an open Internet. I'm not actually sure that John McCain is familiar with the Internet generally, but I think, I've read that his people, at least, are in support of a free and open Internet.
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