Out-of-Control Gossip on Juicy Campus Web Site

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Oct. 3, 2008— -- Shannon Halligan checks JuicyCampus.com quite a lot -- but not because she's obsessed with gossip. She wants to make sure her name doesn't pop up when her classmates dish the dirt in online posts.

"That's what I'm scared of," Halligan, a junior at Syracuse University, said recently. "Some of the ones just say peoples' names and then they'll say, 'Discuss.' And then they'll just bash them."

She's in Delta Delta Delta, one of the many sororities at SU whose members said they have been targets on what is becoming one of the most popular -- and most controversial -- Web sites to hit U.S. colleges. Juicy Campus is a gossip Web site with the self-described mission "of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses."

But the results can seem like something less noble, with all-anonymous posts ranging from "Smelliest People on Campus" to "Worst Hookup." Since its launch about a year ago, the growing site has generated a mixed response, captivating gawkers with its brutally personal critiquing and repulsing others with its debatably truthful and mean-spirited sniping.

"I think that it's a lot of people who are extremely bored just trying to get a laugh," Justin Selle, a Syracuse University senior, said recently. "There's nothing too serious, although some of the stuff, being quite offensive, is actually pretty funny."

Students don't have to register or provide a name to post on JuicyCampus.com, although the site claims to prohibit offensive or abusive material. Tags like "STDs" or "party" make gossip tidbits more searchable. And users can add their own responses or vote on previously posted gossip.

The brainchild of Duke alum Matt Ivester, the site, by its own count, is used at more than 450 schools across the country, with more than 60,000 posts combined. The site instructs media organizations to submit questions for a response, but its managers have not responded to a list of questions from ABC News on Campus.

Students who belong to groups targeted on the site had plenty to say, however. Take SU senior Greg Morrison, a member of the fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi. When he found out his fraternity was the subject of several malicious and explicit posts on the site, he was shocked.

"It's just amazing that we're in college," he said. "We're about to go off into the, quote end-quote, real world and we're about to have families and make decisions that will seriously impact not only ourselves but the world around us ... and we're busy posting stuff on Web sites about fraternities?"

But there's little, if any, recourse for the offended.