[HN Gopher] Got kicked out of uni and had the cops called for a ...
___________________________________________________________________
Got kicked out of uni and had the cops called for a social media
website I made
Author : 1whizkid1
Score : 57 points
Date : 2026-04-06 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (monyatwu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (monyatwu.com)
| blinkbat wrote:
| Hard to have the high road with the mouth of a sailor
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/26/health/swearing-benefits-...
|
| https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/01/170117105107.h...
| BoredPositron wrote:
| That's not what's on display here.
| bigyabai wrote:
| "What do you mean I'm being fired for fucking workplace
| harassment? You're my goddamn boss, don't you know that
| swearing has a positive correlation with intelligence!?"
|
| Yeah, something tells me that these studies aren't going to
| move the needle on swearing and professionalism.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Usually ad-hominem fallacies have a little more padding than
| that.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I think this kind of puritism is not good, at all. It honestly
| feels really elitist whenever people bring up the way of
| speaking, instead of the things being said. A person from
| medevial britain could look at your language and say it's the
| "mouth of a sailor". Different people speak differently. obv a
| college student would speak different from like a mid thirties
| software employee right? I hope you can look past it and give
| me your thoughts on the actual story, which i felt was really
| really crazy
| guzfip wrote:
| This is how evil tends to win. Idiots will select the
| "cleaner" option even if it's worse.
| vignesh_146 wrote:
| 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.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| 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...
| vignesh_146 wrote:
| you are still being disingenuous. We live in a society, the
| college as a whole is a society of various people. Your site
| was hurting some people's sentiments and that's enough reason
| to take it down. I can admit it was maybe cool, but try to do
| cool things which do good to people, not harm. and be a
| little more humble.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > Your site was hurting some people's sentiments and that's
| enough reason to take it down.
|
| Like hell it is. I got news for you - _every_ website hurts
| _someone 's_ sentiments. That's no reason to gatekeep.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I agree so fucking much... anything can hurt someones
| sentiments
| dcrazy wrote:
| So you made JuicyCampus[0]/YikYak[1] and are surprised you're
| being ostracized for it?
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuicyCampus
|
| [1]: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/07/yik-yak-
| re-em...
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| My idea and the implementation was honestly much different
| from these. It was a pretty cool abd unique implementation
| i think, where you're commenting on actual person profiles
| instead of random gossip... hence the virality
| azan_ wrote:
| It's not like people do not make this kind of websites
| because it's challenging technically (it's trivial) or
| because they did not think of it. They don't because it's
| shitty idea.
| sanswork wrote:
| So I've been online for over 30 years now and literally
| every community I've been a part of with over 1000
| members eventually has someone build basically this exact
| same thing. It's about as original and unique as starting
| a t-shirt business or a discount card for students.
|
| As for your claims that people like it because lots of
| people were using it, you are being ignorant. People in
| the community refresh on sites like this/flock to them
| because of fear. They are afraid of what people are
| saying about themselves and their friends.
|
| I guarantee if you actually polled users you'd find the
| vast vast majority of them would wish the site didn't
| exist. Usage != Support.
| pizza234 wrote:
| There are several legal issues, including:
|
| - You created profiles for students without consent
|
| - You enabled anonymous posts about identifiable individuals
|
| - There was no effective moderation/control system
|
| Core issue: once you're aware of harmful content, you're
| expected to act. If you don't address it in a reasonable
| time, you can become legally liable.
| amatecha wrote:
| You might have gotten positive acknowledgement of the
| technical work if you were like, 13. By your age (which I
| assume is greater than 16 or 17) you're expected to
| understand things like "not enabling anonymous attackers to
| harass the shit out of literally anyone at your entire school
| with impunity".
| rybosome wrote:
| 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.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I honestly think the "targeted harrasment" thing is
| completely overblown. i mean that was just a very very very
| small part of the site. like okay, maybe 3 people are
| getting hurt (which btw, they could js report and id take
| the post down), but over four thousand kids were also
| enjoying using the site right? like people would come up to
| me everywhere and say how much fun they're having etc.
| hungryhobbit wrote:
| Surprise surprise: the arrogant selfish child doesn't
| have empathy for anyone else.
|
| If four thousand kids were all laughing at a rumor that
| you had a small dick, and every girl you were interested
| in laughed you out the door for the rest of your college
| career, would you really be like "it's ok, 4k people are
| having fun"?
|
| I guarantee OP would be the guy calling the site operator
| and threatening to jump him.
| mcphage wrote:
| > 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.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| This was exactly my point You can always find 10 people
| who will hate on things, that doesnt mean you should get
| to ruin things for 1000's of others
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| You can always find people who will like something, that
| doesn't mean you should do it.
|
| For example, there are people who watch some sick shit on
| the internet, that doesn't mean you should serve it up.
| samus wrote:
| If the thing directly impacts them then yes, it should
| get to ruin things for the rest. If you don't understand
| why that is desirable then somebody should make a website
| describing which NSFW websites you like to frequent to
| spook your future investors.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| it's like a trolly problem where the main line is "status
| quo" but you can optionally pull a lever labelled _"
| students who like anonymous internet rumoring get more of
| it and also some students are victimized"_
| kstrauser wrote:
| Say hypothetically 1000 people were having great fun
| using it to cyberbully 10 people. It's impossible to say
| that it's no big deal because 99% of users loved it,
| unless you know exactly how much the 1% hated it.
| quietsegfault wrote:
| Here's where I think you went wrong:
|
| 1. IT Act 2000 -- Section 66C / 66D (Identity Fraud /
| Impersonation) You student data and sent emails appearing to
| come from or relate to official IIT systems. The email
| notification system especially is sketchy. sending emails to
| official addresses using student identity data without
| consent borders on unauthorized use of identity/credentials.
|
| 2. IT Act 2000 -- Section 43 (Unauthorized Access / Data
| Theft) Scraping student data from IIT Delhi's internal
| systems without authorization is almost certainly a violation
| here. Section 43 covers unauthorized access to computer
| systems and extraction of data.
|
| 3. Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices)
| Rules, 2011 You collected and published sensitive personal
| data (romantic relationships, social associations) without
| consent, no privacy policy, no opt-out. This is a clear
| violation of the SPDI Rules under the IT Act.
|
| 4. Indian Penal Code Section 499/500 -- Defamation The
| platform explicitly hosted rumors, gossip, and accusations
| (dating history, "haters"). Anonymous posts that damage
| reputation = defamation. As the platform operator and
| publisher, you have exposure. Unlike Twitter or Reddit,
| you're not a passive host. You designed the romantic/social
| tagging features.
|
| 5. IPC Section 354D -- Stalking The "crushing on / crushed on
| by" fields combined with the email notification system is
| very problematic. Enabling someone to anonymously tag another
| person and then notify them about it could constitute
| facilitation of stalking.
|
| Also, it was simply uncool.
| titzer wrote:
| The reaction was swift. Let's hope there are real
| consequences, because consequences are the only thing that
| change behavior.
|
| They wrote at the bottom:
|
| > I'm going to be THE WHIZ KID BILLIONAIRE OF THIS
| GENERATION. WITNESS HISTORY.
|
| Hey, wonderful. But the rules apply to us all, your whiz-
| ness.
| anakaine wrote:
| If this is your viewpoint, that people should be proud of you
| for creating a platform for gossip and bullying, where it has
| real deleterious and negative effects on people's lives, then
| im going to say it - you are a legitimately selfish person
| who lacks empathy.
|
| Seed funders are likely notice these personality traits and
| refuse to invest, because someone with those qualities is an
| investment risk for multiple reasons. For example, in this
| story you've infringed a brand name, scraped and used
| personal data without permissions - likely also breaking
| terms of use, created accounts portraying real people without
| their permission, established a system to defame (the
| relationship component), created unwanted spam (emailing
| university emails automatically) and failed to have in place
| appropriate moderation. Why would investors put their money
| against such a risky proposition?
| basilikum wrote:
| I really hope you'll find something in life to live for that
| actually benefits people.
| jjmarr wrote:
| I don't think he's being disingenuous. OP is transparent they
| started a campus gossip website inspired by _The Social
| Network_.
|
| > 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.
|
| I am surprised that OP, having seen that movie and quoting
| lines from it during his meeting with the administration,
| didn't see this coming.
|
| > also at one point i literally said the social network
| dialogue, " I feel like i deserve some recognition from you
| guys"
| vignesh_146 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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
|
| I don't understand what you mean. The blog is very clear about
| that being the problem.
| vignesh_146 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| The only surprise I see related to the dean is around
| getting his phone grabbed, which seems like legitimate
| surprise.
| ipython wrote:
| That, and after acting like a complete asshole, running
| straight to daddy the minute the shit hits the fan. And
| bawling like a complete pussy when he crosses into the
| "find out" part of FAFO.
| margalabargala wrote:
| The blog is very clear about the author understanding that
| other people were saying it was a problem.
|
| The blog is also very clear that the author, personally, does
| not understand _why_ this is a problem.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| for real, IIT is difficult enough, last thing it needs is a
| "tea" situation, avoiding nonsense trends like that goes a long
| way towards more prosperous futures for everybody.
| selfmodruntime wrote:
| Guy writes a website that scrapes data of people without their
| permission, is repeatedly warned by authority and uni personnel
| to stop, doesn't and then writes a piece on unfair treatment.
| Shucks.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Preliminary comment on tone and behavior in writing: Everything
| about the story, from the described details about what allegedly
| happened to the way those details are communicated, is infantile.
| That makes it very hard to treat the author as a reliable
| narrator about specific details.
|
| Anyway...
|
| > _anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment
| anything on anyone 's profile_
|
| Jesus 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 rumors about others is not an ok thing to want to
| build. You don't have the moral high-ground here. The only thing
| you accomplished was being a creep.
|
| This whole blog post shows an extreme level of immaturity that I
| really do hope you grow out of. Literally every line is absolute
| cringe.
|
| > _this is that story. its really really fucking crazy._
|
| The craziest thing to me about this story is that everything in
| the story makes you look bad and yet you chose to post it anyway.
|
| You either:
|
| A) never realized that you were building a harassment platform
| despite being told this multiple times, which demonstrates a
| complete lack of awareness
|
| or
|
| B) thought it would be a good idea to build a harassment
| platform, which demonstrates a complete lack of empathy
| philipov wrote:
| I wish the people currently building the global terror nexus
| would have that mature realization.
| techjamie wrote:
| I'm surprised at how few comments there are about just how
| creepy this is. Going to a university is not implied consent
| for random people to throw up searchable websites with your
| name and face, let alone allowing random, anonymous other
| people to attach anything they want to it in a comment section.
|
| I get it he was copying _The Social Network_ , but just because
| it's been done before doesn't make it better now.
| bodiekane wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > _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 ..._
|
| False dichotomy fallacy. Also fallacy of emotive language.
| That is a deflection, not a rebuttal.
|
| > _Tea is still available on the app store_
|
| Whataboutism. Fallacy of relative privation. That is a
| deflection, not a rebuttal.
|
| Since we're talking about worlds we'd like to live in, I'd
| like to live in a world where people believe that it's bad to
| think harassment platforms are ok/cool/fun.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| 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.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| The false dichotomy is that the two scenarios are
| presented as the only two options when they aren't the
| only two options. The use of "authoritarian nightmare" is
| the emotive language.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| My intention was not to build a "targeted abuse" platform and
| thats not what was built either. "Abuse", if you can call it
| that, was just a small part of the site. The main point was to
| make the social life more happening, which it did... people got
| to discuss things, confess to people, hangout and make posts
| with their friends
|
| For the "immature and infantile" part, i disagree with you on
| it. I do not believe someones style of speaking should have an
| effect on your interpretation of their words. Youre just doing
| yourself a disservice
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _I do not believe someones style of speaking should have an
| effect on your interpretation of their words._
|
| It has an effect on interpretation of your character. That's
| unavoidable. Welcome to the real world, I guess.
| breakingcups wrote:
| It doesn't matter what your intention was, the point was that
| that was what it did. You didn't think hard enough about how
| people would use it given the (lack of) constraints and
| moderation you designed it with and you didn't take
| responsibility / accountability for what you had facilitated.
|
| Your response to this seems to be: "People need to be more
| thick-skinned, I would take it down if they asked & it's
| unfair that they escalated to the dean." as if that somehow
| invalidates the criticism you're receiving. It doesn't. The
| fact that you don't really own up to that shows a lack of
| emotional maturity which makes it hard for people to feel
| sympathy for you. Until you _actually_ understand why people
| had problems with what you made, you won 't get a lot of
| sympathy for how you were treated either.
|
| It's like those videos where some clueless racist spouting
| off garbage on the subway eventually gets punched by someone
| else. Yes, the assault is definitely "more" wrong. But you
| won't find a lot of people feeling sorry for the racist.
| sfink wrote:
| Why is your intention relevant here? Sure: in the US if you
| kill somebody accidentally then you'll be convicted of
| manslaughter instead of murder. In your situation, intention
| is relevant to whether the school decides to throw you out or
| just discipline you in some way.
|
| But intention is irrelevant when understanding what harms the
| site will cause. Plenty of sites have been created for noble
| purposes, and achieved great things, and yet still ended up
| driving some users to suicide. "Oops, I didn't expect that to
| happen" might make someone punish you less, but it's not
| going to change what was built or what effects it had on
| people.
|
| I mean, at that age I did some stupid shit too and thought it
| was cool. I'd even get defensive and double down when someone
| challenged me by saying I had fucked up and hurt people.
| Hopefully you're still just in that defensive stage and
| you'll be able to see things more clearly when you get some
| distance from it.
|
| Hint: if this continued to be popular, there is no way you
| could control it. (Never mind that you clearly had little
| interest in controlling it thus far; you've basically stated
| that your opinions on what is serious vs trivial harassment
| are all that matter, and when you could get around to
| deleting things is soon enough.) You would be directly
| responsible for trashing the school's social environment and
| harming a lot of people -- many of whom aren't male and/or
| whose daddy and mommy are not in the military. You don't get
| to decide who is and isn't vulnerable.
|
| Please learn something about human nature and what people do
| when given the power over people they feel rejected by or
| superior to. Especially when the attacks are anonymous.
| superkuh wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Any bar worth going to would kick out the asshole with the sign
| and ban them from returning.
| superkuh wrote:
| 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?
| dcrazy wrote:
| What about this imaginary scenario has anything to do with
| OP scraping their college's student directory to populate
| their rumor mill website?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Where did stealing property come from?
|
| Also the guy with a clipboard is only showing those notes
| to a couple people at a time after they journey to his
| location, 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.
| superkuh wrote:
| They stole his phone using physical violence. It's in the
| article. I'll quote it for you.
|
| >So i was like chill out bro, ill just delete the video,
| but the dean said, "no confiscate his phone". so one of
| the guards just snatched the phone from my hand the dean
| said wipe everything, and dont give him his phone back. I
| was like wtf is happening? bro I have my private photos
| on there dont do this. like you cannot do this. I tried
| reaching for my phone but one of the security guys just
| held me. and started being rough with me. like pushing me
| around and shit.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That wasn't really because of the website though. The
| meeting could have been about basically anything and
| grabbing the phone for recording could have happened. It
| was bad but let's not mix up the two situations.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| But it didn't work on him; his parents are in the army.
|
| > I knew the police can't really tell me to do anyhting,
| and my parents are in the army too so intimidation obv
| wont work.
|
| So what are you complaining about?
| hnsdev wrote:
| Tell me you never been to a bar without telling me you never
| been to a bar. Bars are usually a huge hot or not (well,
| parties in general). People are talking and gossiping about
| each other the whole time. At worst you only be talked about
| as well.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| 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.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| Bars probably don't have a directory of everyone that attends
| the bar, that you scraped and published without permission.
|
| The fact that a person is a student at the school can be very
| sensitive information. The classic example is someone who
| leaves an abusive spouse/family and does not want to be found.
| Now their name and picture is out there, and their timetable
| and therefore whereabouts could be partially inferred from the
| school calendar by someone who knows their interests.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > The fact that a person is a student at the school can be
| very sensitive information.
|
| But they were already in the directory? That's much more "out
| there" than the gossip site.
|
| I'm really skeptical of this line of logic. It feels like
| motivated reasoning based on not liking the site, because a
| privacy issue like that is easier to attack (if it's real). I
| think the meaningful criticisms are based on the actual
| functionality, the commenting.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| I understand that opinion, but the opposite view is now
| conventional. Corporate/college directories are usually not
| available in public, but only with a local auth. Even if
| the scraping site restricted signups to local email
| addresses, the college is responsible for the distribution
| of its directory PII so could not allow this.
|
| Leaking PII like this would be illegal in Canada for
| example.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't understand how the word "leaking" would apply
| here. Unless there was an unmentioned login wall for the
| directory he scraped, the site is mirroring the names and
| faces off of a much larger and already public site that
| nobody has said a single word in complaint of.
| sfink wrote:
| It's not public, it's just accessible to the student
| body. The directory has restrictions on how it is to be
| used.
|
| Those restrictions are presumably not going to permit a
| user script that adds a "harass this student" button to
| the directory page, either.
| mbfg wrote:
| I suspect if he changed the name to not include the college name,
| while people would be angry, there wouldn't be a real reason to
| take it down. The sending emails to the college system is also
| iffy.
| M95D wrote:
| Lack of moderation was the real issue with the site.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I mean ppl could contact me if they wanted anything
| removed... several people did too
| croes wrote:
| So people had to know your site before they can get
| anything removed.
|
| That's not the right way to do it, just like Facebook's
| shadow profiles.
|
| You want to use my data, you ask first.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| That's literally how most platforms work.
| croes wrote:
| No, most platforms require that the user creates an
| account don't scrap data do create them without consent.
|
| What you mean are spammers who scrap web pages for email
| addresses to sent unwanted mails.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| But people did contact you. Many people. And you told them
| all you wouldn't take anything down.
| M95D wrote:
| It's too late. Content was already distributed the moment
| it was posted.
|
| Not only it's too late, but when that guy asks, the reply
| was "bitch come suck my dick".
| 1-more wrote:
| The most constructive feedback I can come up with you is to
| think of other people's feelings before doing anything, and
| don't do anything at scale until you've proved that you can
| do this. Failing that, learn how to fight. You are too
| skinny to be this selfish.
| hnsdev wrote:
| The college was being abusive and they probably cannot take your
| phone and delete your stuff. What an awful thing to happen. By
| the way, the dean was not being nice by visiting you, don't go
| through Stockholm Syndrome, he was checking on you because he
| knew what he did was wrong.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| IIT Delhi is in India so I'm not sure what the law looks like
| there, but yeah a university physically stealing an adult's
| phone and deleting his personal photos would definitely be
| illegal in the states.
|
| I wonder if Delhi is the equivalent of a one-party or two-party
| consent state in the US? If it's one-party then OP recording
| their conversation wasn't even illegal.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Defamation is illegal in India, so a defamation platform
| would be problematic.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Two-Party consent.
|
| And just like Zucc he is shielded by privilege - his father's
| a senior bureaucrat in the MoD who attended the NDA.
|
| Additionally, based on the comments on iitsocial, a large
| number of users were commenting how it was devolving into a
| doxxing mill.
|
| Doesn't matter, he'll land on his feet given his familial
| background.
|
| And this is why my parents immigrated to the US in the 1990s
| and I remain grateful for that.
| jjmarr wrote:
| 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"
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| It's actually uncanny Maybe some of the things im doing are
| inspired tho
| jjmarr wrote:
| The advice I have as someone who also pushed boundaries is to
| be more creative next time.
|
| The school will hate you no matter what. But this project
| doesn't appeal to VCs because social networking isn't trendy
| anymore.
|
| Try doing something fresh with AI.
|
| Example: the founder of Cluely got expelled from Columbia for
| creating an AI to cheat at LeetCode-style interviews.
|
| He also spends his time posting what some call unprofessional
| engagement bait on social media. However, he just had a $15
| million Series A.
| thrance wrote:
| He should probably drop out, seek funding from Thiel and start
| his company. He could call it something like "visagebank" or
| similar. Then in a few decades he can join the select club of
| dickheads ruling the world.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| That's clearly his aspiration. I think the window for that
| has passed, though.
|
| This is a johnny-come-lately who is just acting out a script
| that VCs are already sick of.
| joshstrange wrote:
| 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.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I mean it's not at all related to hot-or-not? I feel like this
| site idea, and the implementation was really innovative
| honestly. and also, "you think you're the next coming? Get
| real" lol just witness history
| azan_ wrote:
| What's innovative in the site idea or implementation? There's
| nothing there, it's just rehash of 20 years old idea.
| imiric wrote:
| I agree that the tone is off-putting and immature, but
| attacking the author and the site doesn't change the fact that
| it gained traction and many students seemed to enjoy it (if we
| can believe the claims). There's clearly a demand for this type
| of site, so any technical or novelty merits are irrelevant.
|
| What the author did wrong was mishandling the negative
| response. If he had been open to the feedback and worked on a
| plan to address the concerns, the site might have stayed up.
| Hopefully this is a learning opportunity, as he clearly needs
| it.
| legohead wrote:
| only a couple steps away from Idiocracy
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| what does this mean lol
| josefritzishere wrote:
| When I read things like this I glimplse the enormous cultural
| gulf between generations. I instictively want to take the side of
| the underdog in most situations. But in this case, I do not find
| the protagonist very sympathetic. But clearly, many young people
| feel otherwise. The world is a-changing.
| amatecha wrote:
| I feel like it's not really generational, I remember bros like
| this when I was on IRC as a kid and we were all hacking around
| on stuff and winnuking each other or whatever. Some of them
| actually grew up and did real things which is always cool to
| see (I have plenty of said ppl on LinkedIn who are now crazy
| successful), and then yeah lots of 'em who uhhh, went in other
| directions.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I had the same first reaction. But, then I thought: If
| this were run through a program that re-wrote it to sound more
| like me, more like a typical, mature, 40 year old tech writer
| wrote it, I'd probably be feeling sympathetic to the author. So
| I admit I'm really just rejecting the writing style and the
| "wassup bro lmao suck my dick bro lol bro bro" attitude. Re-
| written, I'd probably be pretty solidly behind this guy.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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". If you don't follow that process they can
| sue you instead.
| amatecha wrote:
| 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.
|
| When you build social technology, you have a responsibility to
| put some serious thought into what the social effects are of what
| you're producing. Every feature will have social and
| psychological implications for the people using the service. If
| you don't care about that, you especially shouldn't even be
| trying to make social-related software.
|
| [0] https://monyatwu.com/blog/iitsocial/pic7.png
| standardUser wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| LastTrain wrote:
| I'm actually pretty tired of young ambitious assholes who
| build themselves off of other people's misery, and I choose
| to not celebrate it. That said, the university overreacted.
| luckylion wrote:
| the "young ambitious" horrible human being. but his "parents
| are in the army", so it's all good.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| kennywinker wrote:
| The irony is this blog post is a massive self-own. Without a
| doubt, for the rest of your life some percentage of people
| you interact with will google you and read this post and
| close a door you wanted to go thru in your face. But at least
| it was your own choice, and it's based on truth. For everyone
| who got slandered on your site it wasn't their choice, and it
| may not even be true.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _if you do care, just report the post, i would have taken
| it down._
|
| But people explicitly asked you to take things down, and you
| refused from the very start.
| croes wrote:
| So you basically created a cyberbully site and your excuse is
| people should be more thick skinned.
|
| Did it ever occur to you that you are the one having a
| problem? Maybe you have a lack of empathy or sympathy.
| jjulius wrote:
| They wouldn't need to report it if you hadn't put their names
| there without permission. Further, you signed them up to be
| notified of comments without their permission.
|
| Doesn't matter what people wrote about them, the simple fact
| is that you did that to them with their data. That you can't
| grasp the concept of crossing private boundaries like that is
| disturbing. Stop laughing about this and start looking
| inward.
| janalsncm wrote:
| I don't know if you will read this, but if you do maybe I can
| suggest a rule of thumb for posting things under your name
| publicly.
|
| You should assume that people don't know you, and they will
| not give you the benefit of the doubt. So it is in your best
| interest to make your public image as unimpeachable as
| possible.
|
| If the person looking at your blog post is a potential
| employer, they will not spend a long time weighing pros and
| cons of your employment. They will pass you over and tell you
| nothing.
| kgeist wrote:
| >just report the post, i would have taken it down
|
| Last time someone asked to take down a post, you said "bitch
| come suck my dick" according to your own blog.
| rambambram wrote:
| Hahaha, I get 'The Social Network' vibes from this story. You
| should read his other posts also. Let's just say the guy has more
| than enough confidence.
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I really felt like i was living in the movie too. also for the
| posts, haha thanks for reading. i feel like they'll be pretty
| cool for people to look back on when im really succesful
| OutOfHere wrote:
| It is your obligation to remove defamatory comments immediately,
| ideally never allowing them to be posted at all (by means of an
| LLM). Secondly, you probably failed to provide the profile owners
| a way to delete their own profile if they seek privacy. These
| inactions are probably what led to complaints.
| ozim wrote:
| I guess that's how you get to be in Forbes 30 under 30 right?
| malfist wrote:
| I was under the impression you just paid for that
| ozim wrote:
| Joke is more about the fact that quite a lot of 30 under 30
| end up serving prison time - mostly because they think they
| are smarter than everyone and that they can BS and get away
| with such things like one from TFA.
| mchannon wrote:
| If you're ever going to record an interaction with people who do
| not want it seen by the masses that they are breaking the law,
| you need to ensure that you livestream it.
|
| Then you can tell them, "Go ahead, confiscate my phone. Proof of
| your illegal acts have already left the building, and the
| country."
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I was honestly just recording it cos i thought itd be cool to
| see in the future. Wasn't going to show it to anyone except
| maybe my friends
| anakaine wrote:
| I call bullshit on that statement. With they way the rest of
| your article reads, what are the chances you wanted to put it
| up on the site?
| gamblor956 wrote:
| 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.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| In fairness, they didn't ask for their profile to be taken
| down. They asked for the _entire site_ to be removed. Ditto for
| the school.
|
| I don't think this was a good site, but it's still important to
| get the details correct.
| leoff wrote:
| Reading this wasn't easy, but let's appreciate the authenticity.
|
| This post doesn't reflect well on you, you were disrespectful to
| every person in the story. You really need to grow up, and you
| could've handled this way better.
|
| You could have, for example, asked exactly what their concerns
| were, and proposed ways to address them.
|
| Your site looks very amateur, but from your description, it
| doesn't sound like you are doing anything clearly forbidden by
| law.
|
| >someone had written a comment about S which he did not like.
|
| Couldn't this also be done in the reddit? Then is the lack of
| moderation and language filters the problem?
| 1whizkid1 wrote:
| I honestly think i was pretty respectful to everyone, well
| until they started being disrespectful to me... > You could
| have, for example, asked exactly what their concerns were, and
| proposed ways to address them. i obviously did this. But they
| had already made up their mind... > Couldn't this also be done
| in the reddit? Then is the lack of moderation and language
| filters the problem? That was something i said too, ppl can do
| this on reddit. But their response was 'but we dont control
| reddit' For the moderation, i mean i was removing things if
| anyone reported it, what else could i do?
| croes wrote:
| > Each profile also had 4 fields, where you could tag anyone,
| in the "has dated", "crushing on", "crushed on by" or
| "haters" category.
|
| >Another cool thing was that whenever someone commented on
| your profile or tagged you, I'd send you an email on your
| official iitd email.
|
| That's quite the opposite of respect. More like spam.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| You're applying US law. I dont think this passes muster on all
| Indian laws.
| khelavastr wrote:
| email me at alexaudretsch@outlook.com.Let'escale the criticism up
| to corrupt IIT grads across the world. India cops have no
| jurisdiction the US. I'll help identify them so they can be
| better denigrated by society and replaced.
| nusl wrote:
| > "the DEAN threatened to kick me out"
|
| So when did the clickbait title apply? The author is honestly,
| from this article, quite a horrible person.
| anakaine wrote:
| Absolutely agree. No care about how their platform is being
| used, chooses to laugh at the almost instant presence of
| bullying and gossip, takes no responsibility, infringes upon
| the institutions name, etc. Ends with ego.
|
| The universities reaction was over the top.
|
| The author also needs to improve their grammar. The occasional
| capitalisation is diabolical. Either do, or don't, and at least
| if you don't it's obvious you're a child.
| DrewADesign wrote:
| > _The author also needs to improve their grammar. The
| occasional capitalisation is diabolical. Either do, or dont,
| and at least if you dont its obvious youre a child._
|
| * Either do, or don't, and at least if you don't, it's
| obvious you're a child.
| anakaine wrote:
| I deserve that correction. Have an upvote.
| ambicapter wrote:
| I don't think the capitalization is what's tipping people off
| this kid is a child.
| malfist wrote:
| This kid is an adult.
| aadopne wrote:
| This guy is too cocky for his own good. Still, an interesting
| case study in how to trip up on your own arrogance and still not
| learn anything from it.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| They're doubling down like that Cluely guy to try to save face
| from it, pretending to be too gangsta to care.
|
| I don't know much about India, but if you're going to go that
| route, it better be as easy to make it by there as a uni drop-
| out as it is in the US.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > I don't know much about India, but if you're going to go
| that route, it better be as easy to make it by there as a uni
| drop-out as it is in the US
|
| It's affluenza.
|
| His dad's a Colonel in the Indian Army and a senior
| bureaucrat who worked on infrastructure development ($$$).
|
| Worst case this kid lays low for a couple months, gets
| admitted into a private university in India thanks to daddy,
| and his dad will use his network to get him a job and start
| his career.
|
| That said, given the way he wrote the article, the comments
| he made on HN, and the kinds of comments I've seen users make
| on iitsocial (some targeted homophobic and sexual harassment
| posts targeting lower caste students) I could see someone
| getting pissed enough to file an FIR on him under IPC 354,
| 504, 505, and 509 as well as the SC/ST Act to make an example
| out of him.
|
| Even if he is found not guilty, getting an FIR means you will
| never get a visa anywhere (because all countries ask about
| your criminal background) and getting a job would be
| extremely difficult without family support.
|
| And becuase this would have become a big news story (rich
| upper caste son of a Colonel aided and abetted in sexual
| harassment of OBC woman at IITD) they tried to give him an
| offramp, which he stupidly ignored.
| timpera wrote:
| Interesting story, despite the clickbait title. Keep up the good
| work.
| quietsegfault wrote:
| What's interesting about it? Sassy kid acts without thinking,
| learns nothing. That's the whole schtick.
| droptablemain wrote:
| I guess I'm too old for this sh*t, the whole thing just sounds
| terribly juvenile.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| This is the most self indulgent story I've ever read.
|
| It brings value to nobody.
| rambambram wrote:
| Hey Mony, I want to follow your blog, please have an RSS feed for
| it if you can.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _What the site was is that, 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._
|
| Oh, good, they made a harassment factory.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Oh, good, they made TheFacebook
| morkalork wrote:
| Ah but, after the first of anything the ladder must be pulled
| up.
| areoform wrote:
| It doesn't matter. This is how Facebook started. It's how a lot
| of things started.
|
| Young people doing (sometimes questionable) experiments.
|
| The fact that the default response to this is "omg" and "this
| guy deserves to be in prison" is an indication of the dark
| times we're headed towards. A society unable to tolerate
| deviance from the norm, is a society that will fail to adapt to
| inevitable changes to the norm. And the norms are changing.
|
| I am pretty pro-privacy. And yes, I find it to be fairly
| thoughtless, but that's no reason for coercive intimidation.
| The fact that this was the reaction to someone doing an
| experiment speaks poorly about the society it took place in,
| and explains why there haven't been any major breakthroughs -
| in consumer tech, science or the arts - from within that
| country.
|
| More generally, HN's reaction is disappointing. This is a very
| hacker thing to do. Hackers have always been people out at the
| edge doing things that get them into trouble. The fact that
| most people on HN want to crush that rebelliousness - that
| hacker spirit - is sad to me.
|
| I think there's a dark undercurrent in global culture, where
| people would rather live in a world where they're poor but able
| to control others as opposed to one where they're wealthy but
| unable to exert control over others.
| jjulius wrote:
| Go, have your fun, experiment, fuck around, push boundaries.
| Don't make profiles for me based on info you found, public or
| not, and then _sign me up_ to receive notifications for
| messages on it without my permission.
|
| Yeah, Facebook started in college, but it didn't start with
| scraped data and auto-generated profiles.
| tokai wrote:
| Facemash, Mark's pre-facebook project, was a page to vote
| on student attractiveness, with names and pictures of
| female students scraped from Harvard.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I will not hold my breath waiting for someone to defend
| him.
| jjulius wrote:
| Ah, true, I forgot that bit. My bad. Still, though...
| oof.
| watwut wrote:
| And zuckenberg turned out to be an asshole later,
| creating products that cause harm and supporting Trump.
|
| So, it all checks out.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I don't think "this is how facebook started" is much of a
| defense.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| it's not 1999 anymore. you can't create malicious sites and
| then cry "I'm just a nerdy teeeeen" afterwards
| antonymoose wrote:
| Devil's Advocate: I would expect a dumb teen to not
| understand the history and blast radius of social media
| like a former teen that grew up on that trash did.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| The author explained that he had watched (and quoted) The
| Social Network, in which Zuckerberg gets in academic
| trouble for doing exactly this.
| adjejmxbdjdn wrote:
| Devil's devil's advocate.
|
| He had several rounds of warnings before things escalated
| (not counting the local bully).
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| You can in fact do that. Kids do stupid things all the
| time. We need to _teach them_ , not ostracize them.
| IndySun wrote:
| Great swathes of adult nations vote for and tolerate
| idiocracy writ large, whilst young people are trying
| something, anything, in a strange new society. I can't always
| agree so I stop and think more, if it's not already too late.
| SimianSci wrote:
| If this were completely uncharted territory, you might have a
| leg to stand on here. But you are correct that this is
| exactly how Facebook started, and we know exactly how that
| goes, the poster is correct that this just leads to
| harassment at scale.
|
| The author's response was the main problem, showing a
| complete lack of character or ethical concern. There is a
| world of difference between being a hacker with a sense of
| rebelliousness and a jerk who thinks there should be zero
| consequences to their actions.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| _" There is a world of difference between being a hacker
| with a sense of rebelliousness and a jerk who thinks there
| should be zero consequences to their actions."_
|
| Given the external consequences of certain actions, for all
| intents and purposes that "world of difference" may exist
| only inside their skull.
| adjejmxbdjdn wrote:
| I'm pretty sure thefacebook didn't scrape data. It was also
| private.
|
| I got into trouble in college which nearly became a police
| matter simply for scraping emails. I didn't even store the
| data. I was just testing a tool that I had created and
| actually found a data bug in the college's IT system where it
| gave me access to all the emails instead of access to only
| the group that I was supposed to be part of.
|
| If it wasn't for the fact that I self reported (actually I
| reported the bug to IT thinking I would be rewarded, lol) it
| would have become a police matter. Because I self reported
| before they reached out to me the Dean and college President
| let it remain a code of conduct violation.
| space_fountain wrote:
| I don't think this person belongs in prison, but the internet
| also isn't the place it was in 2004? You do bear
| responsibility for what you do online, and this was
| irresponsible. We should encourage kids and others to
| experiment and make mistakes, but the kid shouldn't have put
| up this website and should have taken it down as a
| responsible member of the community
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Thank you for this comment.
|
| I printed it out so I could paste it on my toddler thrashing
| machine :)
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| > _The fact that the default response to this is "omg" and
| "this guy deserves to be in prison"_
|
| Straw man fallacy. Nobody here has said he deserves to be in
| prison. What we've said is that he sounds like an emotionally
| underdeveloped child in this story.
|
| > _This is a very hacker thing to do. Hackers have always
| been people out at the edge doing things that get them into
| trouble._
|
| It saddens me that you don't understand the difference
| between "thing that gets you in trouble" and "thing that
| harms others".
| quietsegfault wrote:
| What an asshole.
| anonymouscaller wrote:
| I know he watched the Social Network before he did this :)
| hdhdhsjsbdh wrote:
| Yikes, I guess American tendency for narcissism, cultural rot,
| and attention-seeking at all costs has fully permeated the global
| culture. This brat will probably be successful in life and that's
| exactly why everything's going to shit.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| They will have to grapple with the hollow, gnawing feeling in
| their gut for the rest of their life.
|
| It's some vindication, but it's also just sad.
| KnuthIsGod wrote:
| Harrassment site.
|
| Sites like these are only one step up from revenge porn.
| xrd wrote:
| I've never seen someone with net negative karma until now.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| When I had made some hackernews comment/karma analysis sometime
| ago, I know that there are some people with negative karma.
|
| 1 Proven -247
|
| 2 VentureHawk -89
|
| 3 adamyormark -50
|
| 4 oldpersonintx2 -45
|
| 5 sevenstar -35
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46874249
| DrewADesign wrote:
| Prompt: make a viral story about a cartoonishly obnoxious person
| feeling persecuted for facing _any_ real consequences for their
| antisocial behavior.
| throwanem wrote:
| Congratulations on the successful launch, Mark! (2004)
| titzer wrote:
| > At this point I was genuinely feeling really fucking cool, cos
| I was just thinking this would be a really cool story to tell
| investors when I have a startup. The site was just booming.
|
| This is Mark Zuckerberg posting this, check.
| 1f60c wrote:
| I ain't reading all that, but do you really think it wise to
| recreate TheFacebook in 2026?
| yeah879846 wrote:
| sounds like a strong case of ego
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Look, a piece of valid advice, and let me prefix this with I've
| been in business a long time and I run a big company.
|
| If you want to get anywhere, it's only going to happen by making
| deals with others.
|
| For this, you need to be kind and caring. You need to negotiate
| with people and make everyone feel good, like they're getting a
| good deal, not your response: "bitch come suck my dick" which by
| the way is sexual harassment.
|
| You had one opportunity to remove the account of the guy who
| complained and issue an apology, and you failed. If you had just
| done this, your site would still be up and viral.
|
| At any point in your negotiations with the Dean you could have
| offered to work with him to incorporate his feedback and
| reinforced how the platform was going viral and that it was going
| to be good for publicity because of its parallels to Facebook.
| You needed to identify his core concern (perhaps control) and
| resolve it mutually (make him an admin account or something).
| That's what being a leader is about, not being an egotistic
| maniac.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| You have to bring it back; it's your awesome work
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| OP: College is a time to make mistakes, and learn from them. Do
| you feel you learned from your mistakes? Do you feel there has
| been any conflict with the people who pointed them out? _[0][1]_
|
| Has there been a point when you paused and put serious, private
| deliberation into the question, _" am I wrong?"_ Like several
| consecutive minutes, at least? It's ok to ask that question.
| You're even allowed to do it in the privacy of your own thoughts,
| where nobody else can judge you.
|
| _0 -https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/oppositional-..._
|
| _1 -https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/narcissistic-..._
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I am 17 from the same country and this is somewhat juvenile, this
| isn't an age problem for-the-most-part.
|
| The thing I saw was that, they mentioned investor/startup
| multiple times. I feel like this is their way of getting
| attention (All PR is good PR)
|
| There could've been better ways to handle it and I feel like
| there was no deeper reflection. One of the things I wish to do
| after something is to learn from that. I am unable to find that
| realization sadly :-(
|
| Currently in High school, so maybe my expectations were a bit
| higher of University but I expected better from IIT-Delhi
| Student/Staff (Both)
|
| OP I hope that you can reflect on these things. There are some
| good things to learn which you are dismissing here, Have a nice
| day.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| What the fuck is this ? Is this even real ?
|
| The author obviously lack maturity, is cocky and I guess we have
| every reason to hate him. University (from what he wrote) doesn't
| look bright either but it's India, it's kind of expected.
| nalekberov wrote:
| Apparently he got what he deserved, his karma currently is -17
| (have never seen a negative karma).
| isaacryu wrote:
| I don't know how you could write this and possibly think you come
| across as smart or mature. How you didn't get kicked out
| immediately is beyond me. These people did not consent to be
| included in your site; you had no right to air their personal
| lives because you think it makes you special.
| porridgeraisin wrote:
| Quite the personality this kid, I must say.
|
| The admin behaviour is expected in an Indian context, provided
| you behave the way this guy did. I am not saying it's good to
| snatch the guys phone, but it's expected.
|
| Let me explain the core issue here.
|
| The issue is that if the platform ever devolves into something
| that can be construed as cyberbullying, then the admin is
| suddenly in trouble.
|
| In the Indian context, elite public colleges like IITD have some
| students from quite poor non urban backgrounds, These colleges
| are cheap, have a strict entrance exam (JEE) and there's no money
| requirement so you have people from all financial strata. As
| such, the social dynamic is that the parents "entrust" the
| college with "taking care" of their kid. Especially in first
| generation educated. In contrast, in private colleges with
| homogenous, richer families the social dynamic puts more
| responsibility on the student. The age of 18 is completely
| irrelevant in this dynamic.
|
| The point is, the admin in this college is also somewhat of a
| caretaker of the students. And will face social liability for
| cyberbullying "happening under their nose". This is true even if
| it happens on reddit by the way (and the bully is in the same
| college). Essentially, if there is a way for the dean to
| intervene and he doesn't, he has failed in his job as a
| caretaker. That's the dynamic here. Obviously he has deniability
| if some random american bullies a IITD kid on say HN. But if a
| IITD kid bullies a IITD kid on any social platform they will come
| down on it heavily.
|
| Thus, the platform was never going to work and it's problematic
| before the law even comes into play. Talking about "tell me what
| rule I broke" without considering the above social dynamics is
| fairly immature. If they had done the same thing at say an Ashoka
| University (expensive private college) then they would have faced
| none of these issues by contrast. If I'm allowed a swipe at the
| author, this situation is entirely expected given their
| privileged background.
| liampulles wrote:
| Well Zuckerberg, this is the brainrot staring back at you.
| ball_of_lint wrote:
| With the writing being at the level that it is, I struggle to
| take the claim "I was telling him, sir, give me one actual rule
| im breaking and i'll take the site down" Seriously. OP obviously
| didn't clearly understand why people were having a negative
| reaction to the site; I expect they might not recognize rules or
| laws even if they were cited.
| msteffen wrote:
| Very nice thread by the former CEO of Reddit about online
| behavior, moderation, etc:
| https://x.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289
|
| Per the thread, it's possible this problem could've been solved
| by burying the site in affiliate links...
| LANcaster wrote:
| Hey 1whizkid1, the Forbes 30 under 30 pipeline is waiting for
| you.
| Tiberium wrote:
| https://monyatwu.com/dailyblog/day29/
|
| > ok so i was just doing marketing, we were uploading rumors and
| gossip about people.
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