Campus got a little “juicier” this week.

att Ivester, the creator of the controversial Web site JuicyCampus.com, visited Georgetown Tuesday night to defend his anonymous college gossip site against growing criticism.

In defense of his pet project, Ivester, the creator and CEO of the growing site, spoke about the limits and benefits of the freedom of speech.

Georgetown became the first college to invite Ivester to speak about his Web site, which encourages students to anonymously post gossip and has, as a result, stirred up controversy nationwide.

A 2005 graduate from Duke University, Ivester said he wanted to somehow create an online medium that would help students recreate those fun moments in college.

“A 40-year old man can do business but won’t know college students,” Ivester said, explaining why he had to let the students tell the stories themselves.

The site launched in 2007 in half a dozen schools, including Duke. With just a few e-mails to his friends, he said the site quickly took off and became what he called a “wildfire success.” Soon hundreds of universities were included in the site, and by

September 2008, Georgetown was added to the growing list.

Ivester said the goal of the site is to replace real celebrities with campus celebrities via daily online gossip, as well-known campus personalities would be the prime material for discussion.

Comparisons to Facebook are ungrounded, Ivester asserted, because it is a social network with identified users.

This combination of anonymity and freedom has sparked some serious controversy, Ivester admitted.

In the year since the site went online, at least two students have been arrested for posting plans to commit mass shootings on JuicyCampus’ boards. Though the Web site promises anonymity, police were able to track down the students using their IP addresses.

Ivester argued that there are key differences between his site and other online gossip blogs, though.

First, he said that privacy is still taken into account and even if someone writes your name on the site, search engines like Google will not show anything from JuicyCampus.com.

Second, the Web site will almost always refuse a request to remove a post.

“We allow distasteful name-calling,” he said.

Ivester added that three types of posts are still automatically removed – spam, hate speech and contact information.

Ivester stressed that defining hate speech was difficult, while spam and contact information are easier to detect.

However, Ivester said it is important not to lose sight of the purpose of the site as a form of entertainment. At one point, a student asked him how JuicyCampus.com offers a positive contribution to society. He laughed and said, “It is as positive as `Zoolander.'”

One student asked why JuicyCampus does not offer a method for the users to remove content the majority finds tasteless and wrong.

Ivester set up a hypothetical situation to illustrate his point.

“Say a guy does not want his girlfriend to know he sleeps with a new girl every night,” he said. “He could easily recruit his frat brothers and take the posts off before anyone read it.”

Ivester also answered student concerns about the effect that negative and false JuicyCampus posts might have on their future job prospects. “I think [employers] are going to have to start developing a sense of humor,” Ivester said, as cited by The Washington Post. “It’s not going to work if they start taking unsubstantiated, ridiculous gossip as the truth.”

When asked if there have been posts about him on JuicyCampus, Ivester said the consensus was largely negative.

“I am not a good person if you read JuicyCampus,” he said.

The site does not break any laws, according to Ivester, and it would be impossible for JuicyCampus administrators to act as arbiters in personal arguments or to determine whether content posted is true or false.

“Internet is changing privacy as we know it,” he said.

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