Legal and Ethical Issues

The Legal and Ethical Environment Encompassing Consumer-Generated Content

Laws governing Internet usage are constantly under scrutiny and reconstruction. As web advancements continue to emerge, legal regulations quickly becomes outdated and inapplicable considering the extensive market that is the Internet. The liability of website publishers for consumer-generated content is dramatically limited by federal law. Web publishers for social networks like Facebook.com and college forums such as Ratemyprofessor.com, along with other sites providing reader-generated material are protected under the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The Act intends to protect these web publishers from legal responsibility for “libelous comments” written by third parties. Issues of both freedom of speech and privacy arise in debates over uncensored web postings. Freedom of speech is protected under the First Amendment, including unfashionable speech and opinions. However, the First Amendment’s protects true speech- not lies. This becomes an area of concern regarding the dissemination of uncensored consumer-generated content that seeks to publicize embarrassing rumors or gossip behind the appearance of voicing free speech. Legal restrictions are only so constricting, ultimately raising the question of whether web publishers should be held to a higher ethical standard-one that looks to prevent such defamation through censoring consumer-generated content or redefining a website’s mission. Internet regulations become more complex when websites promote themselves as enabling online anonymous free speech, which stimulates the posting of potentially defaming material, only furthering the legal and ethical problems surrounding these social sites reliant on reader-generated material.

Case Study: JuicyCampus

JuicyCampus.com was an anonymous, gossip site inviting college students to freely discuss topics of interest on college campuses. In 2007, the site was initially launched on seven college campuses and after gaining immediate popularity, decided to go nationwide. Only a few months after its inception, Ivester reported getting over 1 million unique visitors monthly. Despite the site’s success in receiving a high volume of users, the anonymity given to posters caused much of the site’s content to be malicious gossip aimed at embarrassing other students. For those people who have been unfortunate enough to have seen or heard about their name being mentioned on this site, the impact has been devastating. The vicious groupings of students, including “sluttiest freshman” and “worst hook-ups” are posted and archived, ready for friends, family, and the victimized students themselves to see. Although JuicyCampus’s founder Matt Ivester claims that the site’ objective in enabling anonymous posts was to allow the free flow of important college interests, it would be impossible for him to deny the massively negative impact the anonymity of the posts has caused. Granting students the ability to hide behind their anonymity allows for vulgar and immature tendencies to be unleashed in a reckless environment.

Based on the site’s purpose, it would not be surprising to expect that Juicycampus would be the target of multiple defamation lawsuits, since the posted untrue claims have certainly been damaging to those mentioned within the site. However, Ivester claims that no lawsuits have been filed. Based on the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Ivester, as the web publisher, is not liable for any of the defaming content because it was all generated by third-party users. Also, the anonymity of the site’s posters protects them as well. Defamation cases are tough to win, especially when referencing a college gossip site and considering the difficulty of proving defamation (especially when you don’t know who is writing about you). With the freedom of speech and privacy of the gossip-posters protected, it makes it extremely hard to hold them accountable for statements and claims made on a college gossip website. With the apparent sweeping trend of student bashing that takes placed in this isolated setting, Ivester cannot as easily escape ethical discrepancies as legal ones.

On February 4, 2009, Ivester announced through his website that he would be shutting down Juicycampus permanently. He referenced the current economic slump as cause for his depleting revenue, despite an overwhelming number of monthly visitors and posts. However, speculation has been sited that a number of lawsuits are being filed, resulting from the detrimental effects of Juicycampus on certain individuals.

Although legal action could not be sought for violation of freedom of speech, the Attorney General of New Jersey seeking to prove that Ivester was in violation of the Consumer Fraud Act, which concerned his disclaimer that all users of the site would not use their anonymity to harm or misrepresent any individual. Although it was an unsuccessful and roundabout approach to bring Ivester to legal action, this attempt shows the degree of frustration one appointed official reached with the success of a degraded gossip site.

Although this site no longer exists, it doesn’t mean that others won’t mimic its approach, or that they haven’t already. More gossip, college sites are to come and the legal regulation will probably have to change with the times in order to handle the issue of anonymity in web postings.