Penn has 'long way to go' on CollegeACB

Though their names aren’t exposed, Penn students have been among the CollegeACB.com users who revealed their immaturity on CollegeACB.com, according to a manager of the website.

College Anonymous Confession Board, which is run anonymously, is available to more than 500 colleges. According to the new manager — who declined to offer his name in order to “maintain an open dialogue” — anonymity is key to the honesty which the site fosters.

Because CollegeACB has been used for “destructive speech” according to an e-mail from CollegeACB administrators, a new platform will be launched shortly to encourage productive, rather than damaging, comments.

According to the manager, the platform will allow the site to become more interactive and will let users rate posts positively and negatively. The posts with higher ratings will be displayed more prominently on the board.

As the manager sees it, “Penn has a long way to go” and the few “constructive” posts are not as “sophisticated” as they could be.

He described CollegeACB as a place where “incredibly important” conversations can take place. These discussions do not reveal users’ identities, allowing them to be honest — even about “controversial and upsetting ideas,” the manager added.

However, the 500 colleges which use CollegeACB engage with the site differently, according to the manager. “Some schools are full of stupid and inane posts because only a certain kind of people are on ACB” at those colleges, he explained.

These “less mature” posts should naturally evolve to “thoughtful and reflective posts” with help from managers, increased student participation and the new guidelines, according to the manager.

College junior Benjamin Yang agrees that Penn’s ACB is very immature. “It has the capabilities to be meaningful,” Yang said. But the anonymity is allowing people to be immature, egotistical and “evil, in a way,” he said.

As Yang sees it, Penn’s ACB is “like a burn book” instead of a forum for meaningful conversations. Yang does not believe he would ever post seriously on Penn’s ACB as it currently is.

The new guidelines for CollegeACB are not meant to infringe on the honest, open, anonymous conversation that the mission statement demands. Rather, the new guidelines and the new platform are meant “to change the culture” of CollegeACB, according to the site’s management.

The negative material on CollegeACB is to be expected — “For some of you, [CollegeACB will] be an excuse to be judgmental, petty and mean,” reads the new mission statement.

A College freshman who preferred to remain anonymous due to the nature of the site does not believe that CollegeACB will change, despite its new platform and mission statement. “I think the whole premise of CollegeACB is to be silly,” she said. For her, CollegeACB is “kind of a vicious website” that she reads for entertainment, not enlightenment. For her, the site is analogous to Facebook and PerezHilton.com, with the added entertainment of familiar names and concepts.

The College freshman believes CollegeACB should be used only for fun. “I feel like people that take it too seriously are usually the ones who are most offended by it,” she said.

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