The forum for campus gossip at Georgetown may move from the bathroom stall to the World Wide Web.

On Wednesday, Georgetown became a “supported campus” of JuicyCampus.com, a campus gossip Web site, joining the 380 other colleges and universities that have gossip pages on the site. Anyone can request that a college or university become a “juicy campus,” although requests must be approved by a site administrator.

JuicyCampus.com launched an improved version of its Web site earlier this month, promising to increase its service to more than 500 universities by the end of September.

The site allows individuals to post topics for discussion, and others can click `agree,’ `disagree’ or post written responses to these posts. So far, discussion boards started on Georgetown’s section of the site include debate over the campus’ most attractive students, biggest drug users and popular places for illicit sexual activity.

The Juicy Campus site states that it was started with the “simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses,” but since it launched in October 2007, posts on Juicy Campus have sparked backlash, even resulting in the arrests of two students.

In December 2007, a student from Loyola Marymount University who allegedly threatened a shooting spree in a post on the site was apprehended by the Los Angeles Police Department, although he was later released without being charged.

In March, authorities arrested a Colgate University student who they believed was responsible for another shooting threat posted on the site. While posts are called “totally, 100-percent anonymous” by the site’s creators, officials were able to obtain the IP address of the poster after a state subpoena was issued. The suspect was charged with second-degree aggravated harassment and was ultimately released on $1,000 bail.

The site’s founder and CEO, Matt Ivester, defended the site on Juicy Campus’s official blog back in February amid growing criticism.

“Our hope for the site has always been that Juicy Campus would be a place for fun, lighthearted gossip, rather than a place to tear down people or groups,” Ivester said.

any, however, have protested against the type of material posted on the site.

In February, Pepperdine University’s student government voted 23-5 to block the site from the school network, although the school’s administration did not enact the ban.

Even state authorities have begun to take action, with New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram subpoenaing the site’s records in March after she was contacted by concerned parents and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal launching an investigation of the college gossip site.

Several Georgetown students said they are disappointed by the addition of a Hoya network to the site.

“It brings back memories of high school,” Sarah Helinek (SFS ’10) said. “It’s really immature and just not necessary.”

Anupam Chakravarty (SFS ’10) said that while he initially found aspects of the site amusing, he also has concerns. “If this is what is representative of Georgetown, it’s kind of sad,” Anupam Chakravarty (SFS ’10) said. “The prejudices that are covered up are becoming more apparent. Everything that we’re told about diversity is lip service if this is what people really think.”

Juicy Campus has taken some steps to protect users, though, according to the site’s official blog. The site is not “crawled” by search engines, which means that a Google search of someone’s name will not yield results from Juicy Campus posts. Also, if an individual’s personal contact information is posted on the site, Juicy Campus will remove the post at his or her request.

When signing onto the site, users are required to agree to Juicy Campus’ terms and conditions, and links are provided to information about online defamation laws.

“You agree not to post content that is obscene or that violates laws relating to sexually explicit material, that infringes the rights of any third party . that is defamatory, or that constitutes hate speech,” the conditions read.

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