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International Law

: Freedom to Differ

Watch what you say on Juicy Campus

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I've blogged about Juicy Campus before (see here) and it is now once again in the headlines:

Make rape, physical violence, and even non-gun-related death threats all you want online with virtually no consequence?but when it comes to school shootings, law enforcement thinks the 'Net is serious business. A student at Colgate University has been arrested and charged this week with aggravated harassment after he made a post on Juicy Campus, a site that serves as a public forum for students to anonymously gossip about others. The police involved in the arrest admit that the post appeared to be a prank, but say that they "have to take that as seriously as possible."

"I wonder if i could shut down the school by saying I'm going to shoot as many people as i can in my second class tomorrow. I hope I get more than 50," 20-year-old George So wrote on Juicy Campus, as recounted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. "For liability reasons and IP tracking I won't leave it at that. But seriously, this site is rediculous [sic], if it got big, and someone put the effort into writing a big long serious suicide note informing all readers that he would kill over 100 kids, they could shut down the school. Nice."

Shut down the school he did not, but So did manage to catch the attention of another Colgate student. The student alerted campus police, who then involved Hamilton police and stationed officers all over Colgate as well as the nearby high school. Simultaneously, authorities worked (presumably with Colgate's IT department) to identify So's IP and trace it back to his on-campus apartment. When authorities showed up at his door, So admitted that he wrote the post and was arrested. No weapons were found in his apartment, Hamilton Police Chief James Tilbe told the Utica Observer-Dispatch, although So's roommate was found to be in possession of a "small amount" of cocaine.