March 26, 2008 | Sex & Society

When do gossip sites cross the line?

Gossip is no longer just the bane of celebrities and media whores. For example, take Juicy Campus, a new site that was launched for college students, allowing tipsters to expose the dirty little secrets of campus life.

The veracity of any posts are not checked. And individuals can add anything they like. "C'mon. Give us the juice," the website pleads. "Posts are totally, 100% anonymous."

One Yale sophomore learned about the site the hard way. Someone posted a story about his gay porn past; he was even identified by name. Within days over 900 people had read about the student's "secret" movie career.

He said he felt panicked about the posting, and tried to zone it out. "What else could I really do?"

Juicy Campus were founded on August 1, 2007 "with the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses."

But is it really about free speech, or is it just a juvenile site for people with too much time on their hands?

The site creators' argue they have nothing to feel badly about. "Remember that you are reading a web site run by people you don't know, containing comments made by people you don't know, concerning events which may or may not have occurred. You should take everything you read with a large grain of salt."

Michael Fertik, who graduated from Harvard Law School and founded reputationdefender.com, pointed out that "legally, Juicy Campus is fully, absolutely immune, no matter what it runs on its site from users, just like AOL is not responsible for nasty comments in its AOL chat rooms."