Colleges Crack Down on CollegeACB.com
The popular gossip website is facing pressure to clean up its reputation.
April 18, 2011— -- Popular college gossip website CollegeACB.com is drawing scrutiny from universities nationwide.
The site serves as the largest college anonymous confession board in the world and allows students to post anything they want about their campuses and classmates.
At Drew University this past semester, a 19-year-old freshman was devastated when she saw her name listed under a "fattest people on campus" blog post. After telling her parents, the family attempted to have the post removed, even filing a complaint with the state attorney general.
Colleges now say they're cracking down on CollegeACB.
At Creighton University, in Omaha, Neb., a special committee made up of students, faculty, staff and school vice presidents voted to block the website on their campus server.
"Unlike Facebook and MySpace, we realized this was nasty and wasn't a blog for meaningful conversation," Creighton media relations coordinator Cindy Workman told ABCNews.com.
Workman says Creighton followed schools such at Pepperdine and Tulane, who also blocked CollegeACB from their servers.
What's new about this current round of protests against the site is that they're coming from college administrators. One student petition has been circulating for close to a year. At James Madison University, in Harrisonburg, Va., last May a student started a petition to ban CollegeACB altogether. It's accumulated almost 600 signatures -- the most recent signings coming from students at Pennsylvania State.
"The administration recognizes that both Greek and non-Greek students are not happy with the website and we applaud their efforts in voicing so," said Jill Shockey, news bureau manager at Penn State's public relations department. "We have over 30,000 students in Greek chapters -- it seems some traffic on that website stems from comments about sororities and fraternities."
In February, Drew University president Robert Weisbuch issued an open letter to students, asking them to boycott CollegeACB, stating, "These postings result in fear, anger, mistrust and shame in individuals who are named."
