But as much as I enjoy hearing all the dirt about the girl down the hall from me, I draw the line somewhere. And that somewhere is online.

For those of you who don’t know, after JuicyCampus.com was shut down, another website popped up in it’s place. It’s called CollegeACB.com and it has quickly become the nightmare of many. Including myself.

According to Peter Frank, the founder of CollegeACB.com, the purpose of the site is for people to post anonymous threads and comments about “any facet of college life.”

“The College ACB or College Anonymous Confession Board seeks to give students a place to vent, rant, and talk to college peers in an environment free from social constraints and about subjects that might otherwise be taboo.”

His words are well-chosen and seemingly innocent, but as anyone who has visited this website understands, Frank is simply camouflaging what the site is really for: vicious gossip.

When you go CollegeACB.com, you’re greeted with a list of schools which have pages on the website. When you click on one, you’re taken to that school’s gossip page, which is filled with anonymous posts and replies to posts. All saying incredibly hurtful things – which may or may not be true – about real people. There are pages upon pages about the biggest sluts, the ugliest girls and other terrible things that should never be hashed out over the internet.

After being a victim of a vicious rumor spread about me via CollegeACB, I have to wonder why a site like this even exists. The site’s users and target demographic are college students. Adults. We are not in high school and we are most certainly not on the set of Gossip Girl, so why are schools, especially mine, so obsessed with such a childish and disgusting site?

The biggest problem with CollegeACB (and the main reason JuicyCampus went kaput) is that people can write  absolutely whatever they want without repercussion. Because people know what they say on CollegeACB can never be traced back to them, they feel like they have the freedom to say anything – be it a made-up story, a secret that someone confided to them or simply complaining about someone’s fashion choices. This lack of real moderation means that the subject of all these “opinions” can’t fight back, clear their name, or even find out who said it. And thanks to the permanence of the internet, true or not, that statement will be forever linked to that person’s name.

It is bad enough that Peter Frank has created a space that fosters negativity and blatant sexism, but it is even more disconcerting that so many students feel the desire to hide behind their computer screens and spread vicious gossip about one another. Gossip that can really harm other people’s reputations and college experiences. Sure, most girls have probably never been a victim of a site like this, but it’s only a matter of time. The longer this site stays around, the more people will be discussed. And if anyone can say anything, what’s to say you won’t be next? Just imagine how you’d feel. Then imagine how much worse it will be down the road when you’re applying for a job and your potential employer can what some random person posted about you on this despicable site.

Gossip happens in college – I get that – but there’s a huge difference between what you may tell your best friend and what you share with anyone who has access to the Internet. The web is a good place for lots of things, like funny Youtube videos and advice on how to look cute when you have to cover yourself in layers so you don’t freeze (very useful at Northwestern), but it shouldn’t be a place to rant about people, to get back at people, or to share someone’s deepest held secrets.

If you are one of the many students frequenting a site like CollegeACB, stop. Grow up. Think about your actions. Even if no one out there knows who you are, you do! Are you really the type of person who purposely hurts someone else?

Things ended when he moved out to L.A. after graduation, but we kept in touch online and through Facebook ever since.

So when I clicked on my Facebook event notification and saw that he’d be back in town in a couple months, my first instinct was to accept the invite to the party in his honor.

That is, until I saw the Facebook wall.

One of his buddies, whom I’ve never met in my life, wrote on the wall: “Hey Blake, you should call that Melanie chick. That alcoholic nympho will probably get so excited she’ll bust a clasp on her straight jacket.”

Wow. What?!

Directly following Doucheface’s comment, Blake responded with a nice “hahahaha.”

Shocked, embarrassed and angry, I confronted Blake about the whole thing. He fed me some baloney about his friend “taking stories and blowing them out of proportion” and brushed me off like it was no big deal. I was not amused. I mean, this was not some private issue; my name was being slandered in a very public place.

I waited a couple days to see if Blake would delete the comment. He didn’t.
Naturally, I declined the invite to this Mel-bashing soiree.

The sad thing is, this isn’t the first time I’ve been Facebook blasted. I’ve seen terrible comments about me on friends’ walls as well. Do these people think I’m not going to see it? Or are they too afraid to talk sh*t to me in person? Why would anyone think it is OK to use Facebook as a sh*t talking battle ground?

I get that these Facebook blasters are fugly, useless degenerates and not particularly worth my time, but what really irks me is the fact that these rude insults about me are floating around on the internet for everyone to see and I have no way to stop it. No way to defend myself. I’m being bullied and I can’t fight back.

Have any of you ever been a victim of Facebook hate? Share your stories below.

Melanie currently interning in NYC, taking full advantage of all margarita specials and those blonde summer boys. Stalk her on Twitter: @tinkermellie

Personally, while I don’t agree with all of her views, I am a fan of Ann Coulter. I admire her courage to speak her mind without fear of consequence, and her strength to continue putting forth her opinion boldly even when a vast majority of Americans absolutely cannot stand her. I disagree with her on some of her stances, and my views tend to be less extreme than hers, but overall I support her whole-heartedly. So, with that in mind, I’m putting forth an opposing argument to the accusation that Ann Coulter is the anti-feminist.

In the early 1900s, when suffragettes were working tirelessly to grant women the right to vote, they were often treated horrendously by the male-dominated world around them. They were jailed for their protests, and force-fed when they went on hunger strikes to protest their treatment. The suffragettes were treated as deviants by society, and derided as being radical lunatics trying to usurp male authority. While they had a base of support from women, they were despised by male authority figures, and other women turned against them.

Ann Coulter would not want to be called a feminist, as Gloria Steinem would define it. She does not support abortion, has never burned a bra, and will never use affirmative action as a weapon to suit her own ends. She is not, however a force detrimental to women. If a political slant was removed from her writing, she would be hailed as a woman breaking the somehow ever-present glass ceiling, and her satirical tone would be portrayed as “edgy” and “revolutionary,” not “antagonistic” or “condemning.” But because she uses an “edgy” tone that goes against the grain of a sizeable portion of politically conscious citizens, she is demonized and slandered by her critics. In a liberal-slanted media, the negative focus is fixated on Ann Coulter’s blunt conservatism, and similar liberal pundits, such as the charming and soft spoken Arianna Huffington, are spared a harsh public eye and actual criticism of shallow, vacuous writing.

You may not like what Ann Coulter says, or writes, or thinks. But it is undeniable that in the formerly male-dominated world of politics, she is a force of nature. She speaks her mind without concern for popularity, without padding her words with compromises and concessions, and has never allowed a man to get the best of her in a debate. She even earnestly supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential campaign, turning against the Republican nominee to support a fellow “glass-ceiling demolitionist.”

You may call her series of books irrelevant, but the mere fact that she has authored six New York Times Best-Sellers is an indication that her opinion is far from irrelevant, and especially not in the area of American politics. Labeling her as batsh*t insane is a baseless act, and one that demeans politics from a mature playing field to childhood playground taunts. It is also a violently anti-feminist act, because it supports the idea that bold, vocal women should be stifled in their opinions and labeled as insane, social deviants incapable of independent thought. To criticize her for how she dresses and portrays herself, when she is styled more conservatively than the vast majority of our society, is wrong. It is in fact, a one- way ticket back to the 1950s.

Is she good for women, or bad?

Ann Coulter is good for women because she proves that a woman can succeed in a male dominated world without compromising her femininity in order to gain respect. She is strong, beautiful, and very intelligent, all traits that should be valued by women, and certainly meet the requirements of a female role model. She is not a twisted, bitter, and man-hating drone of Third Wave Feminism. Instead, she is a bold, vivacious, and well-educated woman who represents traits modern women should strive to achieve. Whatever opinions other pundits have about her, they still value her opinion enough to continually invite her on their shows to have intelligent, and, at times, loud debates with her. Her arguments are intelligently constructed and witty, which are received as abrasive and “crazy” to those on the receiving end of her opinions.

I am a conservative, Christian Republican, and I am very proud of Ann Coulter.

It hurts enough to sever ties with someone who knew every intimate detail about you, but imagine those private moments, discussions and pictures becoming public knowledge at the hands of someone you loved.

Men.Style.com recently ran a story in its Details forum concerning the topic of revenge porn, defined by UrbanDictionary.com as “homemade porn uploaded by an ex-girlfriend or (usually) ex-boyfriend after particularly vicious breakup as a means of humiliating the ex.” While the writer, Richard Morgan, cautions against revenge porn lest anyone involved (usually the boyfriend) suffer legal consequences, the casual manner in which he describes revenge porn does not fully clarify just how damaging this growing trend can be.

An influx of lawsuits concerning variations of revenge porn (homemade sex tapes posted on internet porn forums, nude pictures uploaded to MySpace accounts, distribution of homemade DVD’s) has sparked interest and concern in law-makers, who feel that new laws should be established to regulate the final legal frontier: the Internet. Details questions the necessity of criminalizing revenge porn, ignoring the long reaching effects it could have on a victim and, therefore, trivializing the entire issue.

Revenge porn, argues Morgan, shouldn’t necessarily qualify as a crime because it simply serves as a sign of the times. It’s just the product of our self-obsessed, celebrity crazed, over-exposed and digitally adept generation: the 2008 equivalent of petty slander, right? Wrong. It is not, as the article put it, “the contemporary version of writing ‘Jenny gives good head’ on the bathroom wall.”

Chances are Jenny’s friends, family, boss, and professors are not going to happen upon the exact stall of the exact dive-bar where her drunk-ass ex managed to get his hands on some Jaeger and a Sharpie. That bathroom stall doesn’t say Jenny’s last name, and unless said ex has some scotch tape and a picture of her in his wallet, Jenny is faceless. Comparing scribbles above a urinal with the emotional damage, public embarrassment, and potentially career ruining effect of compromising someone’s online identity is completely inappropriate.

Revenge porn is just as–if not more– invasive, cruel and immoral as any other form of slander or libel and should be punished in exactly the same way. Of course the smartest way to avoid becoming a victim of revenge porn is to not do, make or say anything explicit with a partner, but that is slightly unrealistic, not to mention takes away a major perk of being in a relationship in the first place.

Having a partner who you know well, love and trust allows women to really open up and…let loose. Unfortunately, that blissful relationship doesn’t always last forever and sometimes there’s no telling what revenge will drive a person to do.

Think about this next time you pull out the digital camera in a moment of passion. Would you want your Facebook friends seein’ that?

The enigmatic anonymity that the web provides was a big green light for mean teenagers to harass other mean teenagers without the consequences of face-to-face confrontations. And it was this online shield that facilitated the worst culprit behind my pubescent angst: the fake screenname.

Fake screennames were the best way to tear your enemy (or popular best friend) apart incognito. You could lash out ruthlessly, ruin lives and then delete said screenname without being linked to any of the drama that would surely ensue.

I will never forget my most potent digital nemesis: ClawYourEyesOut. ClawYourEyesOut not only harassed me on a nightly basis with the unoriginal “slut,” “bitch” name-calling. He/she also IMed my adorable little boyfriend Brad and my bitchy, gullible friends and spread nasty rumors which quickly turned them against me.

And even though ClawYourEyesOut brutally defamed my reputation, there was nothing I could do about it. To this day, ClawYourEyesOut’s identity still eludes me.

But thanks to two female Yale Law School grads—who suffered a magnified version of my ClawYourEyesOut saga, online anonymity may not be such an impenetrable issue in the future.

The two women are trying to uncover the identity of 28 pseudonyms behind discussion board posts that spread rumors about their academic records, sexuality and even threatened rape.

The anonymous statements—which MSNBC dubbed “digital graffiti”—were posted on AutoAdmit, a law-school discussion site where employers can dig up the dirt on prospective employees. This being the case, the libelous remarks cost the two women legal internships and job opportunities.

Had these defamatory statements been published online by a known person, the women would have a strong case since the libel laws which hold newspapers accountable for defamation of character extend to the blogosphere. However, since you can’t sue a pseudonym (ie: Erica Segal vs. SexyKitten143), these women are trying to unearth the identities behind the posts.

They are suing the website’s manager—who denied their request to remove the defamatory posts—in hopes of subpoenaing information about the anonymous posters (ie: what computers the posts came from…so anyone who posted from Starbucks lucked out).

If the women win this case, victims of anonymous online defamation and harmful unwanted attention—like Allison Stokke—may be able to uncover the living, breathing humans behind the name-calling keyboards.

Who knows… if I can prove that ClawYourEyesOut caused me serious emotional distress, maybe I can subpoena his/her identity and finally get some closure (read: seek revenge).