Social networking site squashed by British university
We read:
"The founder of a student flirting website has been fined £300 for bringing his university into disrepute. The FitFinder, set up last month, combines Twitter and Facebook to allow students to exchange saucy messages on campus. The site received four million hits in its first month and has rapidly expanded to universities across the country.
Rich Martell, 21, a final-year computer sciences student at University College London, has taken the site down under pressure from university authorities, who were concerned that it was distracting students from their studies. Staff claim to have been contacted by a number of other universities unhappy about FitFinder.
FitFinder has gained national attention since its launch in April for its risque content and its wildfire-like spread. The site allows students to “spot” attractive people in libraries, cafes and lecture theatres, and post a message about them on the publicly visible site in the hope of getting a response.The site has been criticised by women’s groups, who cite sexually explicit comments as evidence of its offensive tone, while supporters argue that it is nothing more than friendly banter and a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun.
Mr Martell has vowed to resume the service as soon as the safety of his university degree is guaranteed and said that it was an unfair reaction to a social networking site that he sees as no different to Facebook or Twitter. “If a UCL student posted something offensive on Facebook would they hold Mark Zuckerberg [the site’s founder] responsible?” he asked.
Source
6 comments:
How is this any different than the personal ads in newspapers? The real problem here is, not that young people are looking for ways to "hook-up" and have sex with each other, (something that is unstoppable) but that these young people have become so comfortable with putting their most private information out there for the world to see, even though we read about ID and info-theft horror stories every day.
Perhaps when they grow up, assuming they ever will, they will realize that in the real world, there is more evil than good. They will most likely have to learn that the hard way.
So I'm just wondering how long it will take for that person/s who like/s to post here saying this event must be yet another proof of the downfall of "Batty Britain"??!!
It's not Batty Britain silly. It's socialist, pc'ized, muslim-loving, Britain.
Downfall? Or uprising of a fascist state? Freedoms aren’t necessary to the creation of a powerful bureaucracy. But perhaps there are multiple examples of the protection of freedoms in Batty Britain that would dwarf the instances of oppression, suppression, harassment, and a civil service more interested in protecting the state than the people who it is supposed to serve?
That a young entrepreneur should fear for the security of a degree he is otherwise qualified for because people are exchanging legal conversations on a website started by him is really a sad indictment on the state of freedoms on UK university campuses.
With all the posts on this site about the US, why is it never "batty USA" (or whatever alliterates better). Seems a bit like hypocritcal finger-pointing!
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