Discussion
The iitsocial story
vignesh_146: lol this happened at my college (IIT delhi). He's being disengeious in the blog, the reason they made him take the site down is cos people writing some really really bad things about students, and Obv that should not be allowed at a place for higher education. Be more mature.
jjmarr: I don't think he's being disingenuous. OP is transparent they started a campus gossip website.> I had scraped data for all students at IIT Delhi, and made a profile for all of them.> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile. Each profile also had 4 fields, where you could tag anyone, in the "has dated", "crushing on", "crushed on by" or "haters" category.
joshstrange: One can hope that time will lead to more maturity than was shown in launching a site like this or acting that way when pressed.Yes, the admin didn't handle it well, but the writing style and general tone of this post/incident is incredibly off-putting. All while talking about future "investors" and how many great ideas he has. You created a clone of hot-or-not (or whatever Zuck called his site) and you think you're the next coming? Get real. There was nothing innovative here at all, it might be one thing if it was innovative while being scummy but it's just scummy and a tired copy.
superkuh: Imagine if this was, say, at a bar. A person holds up a sheet of paper on a clipboard and says anyone can write about anyone else in the bar. Would the police be called? Would legal threats be made? People freaking out like this is not consistent with social norms. It's magical thinking about the internet somehow being different or unique.Good luck dealing with these small minded administrators.
dcrazy: Any bar worth going to would kick out the asshole with the sign and ban them from returning.
superkuh: Okay. Now imagine he's doing it out on the public sidewalk and not using bar property. Would it be justified to use physical force and steal the clipboard owner's property?
Dylan16807: Where did stealing property come from?Also the guy with a clipboard is only showing those notes to a couple people at a time, which makes a pretty big difference for the amount of disruption. There's no magical thinking about the internet being special. The social norms are different because the situation is so different in many ways.
x3n0ph3n3: Yeah, but he also took students' PII and put it on his website. If someone did that in a bar, there's a good chance they'd get their face punched by others in the bar.
jjmarr: I love how OP directly borrowed the plot of The Social Network by scraping the campus directory for a student rating system. And somehow it's playing out in the exact same way.> I had scraped data for all students at IIT Delhi, and made a profile for all of them.> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile. Each profile also had 4 fields, where you could tag anyone, in the "has dated", "crushing on", "crushed on by" or "haters" category.> he told me, take the site down or you WILL face DISCO, so again I was like sure, I dont mind it (I was just gettting reminded of Social Network lmao)> also at one point i literally said the social network dialogue, " I feel like i deserve some recognition from you guys"
amatecha: I mean, this guy seems absolutely clueless. Anyone with even the slightest social awareness would know this site is going to result in hurting people and people are going to really dislike him for making it... and further his own conduct is super immature (wtf is [0])... He basically made a harassment service, complete with allowing anonymous posting? Definite "FAFO" moment. I don't feel a shred of sympathy for his situation.[0] https://monyatwu.com/blog/iitsocial/pic7.png
catlikesshrimp: The implementation of the idea looks more like a kiwifarm egg than a facebook egg.Thinking about Anonymous posting about non public figures is perturbing. If the poster can't be made responsible for the post, then the platform and the platform of the platform (and so on) are in line. That is: new website, then the hosting servers (and so on)
Ajedi32: DMCA is a pretty good model for this sort of thing IMO. You take down the post, notify the poster, and if the poster wants they can have you put it back up and tell the original complainant "sue me".
gamblor956: FTA: "Mony: bitch come suck my dick"...in response to someone politely asking to have his profile removed. Then the school told you to take it down and you refused.You deserved to get kicked out of school.Yes, this site would probably have been fine (if distasteful) in the U.S...because the U.S. has a different legal system. This site is not legal under Indian law. Defamation works very differently in India.You should consider yourself lucky that you're able to write this blogpost instead of finding out what the inside of an Indian prison is like.
Dylan16807: > He's being disengeious in the blog, the reason they made him take the site down is cos people writing some really really bad things about studentsI don't understand what you mean. The blog is very clear about that being the problem.
vignesh_146: I meant he's being disengeious in being surprised about the dean. like this should have been obvious to him, obv if you make something like this, you will face consequences...
Dylan16807: The only surprise I see related to the dean is around getting his phone grabbed, which seems like legitimate surprise.
1whizkid1: How is some people writing bad things about some students a valid reason to make me take my website down? like iit should honestly have been proud of me for building something cool, which over 80% of their uni is using. instead of threatening to kick me out...
rybosome: It's incredible to me that you don't feel any responsibility for a platform that you created. What happens on the platform is shaped directly by the choices you make as its creator - to be anonymous or identifiable, what the topics of discussion are, whether moderation happens.By allowing anonymous commentary, scraping every student's data and seeding the conversation around "rumors", you created an environment that is perfect for targeted harassment. You created the platform and maintained it; what happens on that platform is absolutely your responsibility.I highly recommend that you take this opportunity to do some introspection and consider why so many people were upset.
legohead: only a couple steps away from Idiocracy
1whizkid1: what does this mean lol
1whizkid1: honestly, i do not get the hurting people thing. like ok, i do get it, but i just feel like people should be more thick skinned in general, people have said a lot of stuff about me too... but i just dont care. and like ok, if you do care, just report the post, i would have taken it down. why do you need to call the police and tell the dean to kick me out? that's just very malicious. and i mean i kind of get why people were writing bad stuff about people like these
M95D: Hurting with words via live speech is one thing. A website amplifies it and makes it permanent.When people say stuff, only other people around them hear, and even then it can be denied. When people write things online, what they write is public for everyone to read, and it's permanent, forever screenshotted and reposted.
standardUser: I find it hard to blame the young ambitious teenager and much easier to blame the grown-ass adults in supervisory roles who apparently can't cite a single violation by name and later violently steal a kid's phone.The kid might have some things to learn, sure, but the adult behavior is what I would call "super immature".
margalabargala: I agree about the adults but I can blame both.The teenager is on a trajectory to become a very capable person, technologically.They are also behaving like a sociopath and may well be on a trajectory to cause an awful lot more harm than good in the world.This event could have been a great teaching moment if it was handled by an adult with the capacity to execute on it.Everyone sucks here and the future is.worse for.it.
mcphage: > consider why so many people were upset.Were there lots of people upset? Or was it a small number of people with power who were upset? Like, I'm not at all surprised by how this played out, but it's not clear that anyone was upset beyond some people who don't take well to criticism.
i told him "sir I've been working the past 25 days on this, even at my sisters wedding i didnt sleep cos i was working all night" but they just said some stupid shit liek "oh so if i work 25 days on a bank robbery does that make it ok"?
BugsJustFindMe: > anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profileJesus christ. You built a platform specifically designed for targeted abuse. I know that you're still young, but one day when you're older I hope you come to realize that a platform for spreadings damaging rumors about others is not an ok thing to want to build. You don't have the moral high-ground here.> i told him "sir I've been working the past 25 days on this, even at my sisters wedding i didnt sleep cos i was working all night" but they just said some stupid shit liek "oh so if i work 25 days on a bank robbery does that make it ok"?This whole blog post shows an extreme level of immaturity that I really do hope you grow out of.
philipov: I wish the people currently building the global terror nexus would have that mature realization.
anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile
bodiekane: I'd rather live in a world where a student's website hosts an anonymous mean comment about me than live in the authoritarian nightmare of how the school officials, guards and police acted in this behavior.Tea is still available on the app store, which is a far more targeted harassment and slander app, than this one that was clearly more of a 4chan style "for the lulz" that no one would take seriously.
BugsJustFindMe: > I'd rather live in a world whereI'd like to live in a world where people understand that it's bad to want to create a platform specifically designed for harassment.
Ajedi32: The manner in which the school got the website taken down was via an authoritarian nightmare, so it's not exactly a false dichotomy in this case. If not for the authoritarian nightmare the site might still be up.Though it's admittedly possible they could have eventually gotten the website taken down through less thuggish means.
