On Jan. 31, the San Diego State Confessions Facebook page was shut down after a submission with mention of a racial slur brought on numerous reports. The page was re-launched the same day, now in the presence of the new SDSU Compliments Facebook page.
The Compliments page, similar to the Confessions page, allows anonymous submissions. However, unlike the Confessions page, only posts regarding the appreciation of all things SDSU are posted.
Regardless of the rumors circling both pages concerning the Compliments page’s involvement with the shutdown, its administrator cleared up any misunderstandings by clarifying the Facebook policies pertaining to the matter.
“If we knew how to shut down a page, then we could shut down any page on Facebook,” the Compliments page admin said. “So the answer is, we had no idea why their page was gone and we didn’t do anything to their page either. If you take a look at Facebook policies, only the page admin can delete a page.”
Confessions page admin Lance Bowman said there are times when he and the other admins forget to review a post prior to posting it. Although reports concerning the page aren’t foreign to the admins, a post containing a racial slur was the reason behind the recent shutdown of the Facebook page.
“Facebook has some policy that makes it that after a certain amount of times something has been reported, it gets shutdown,” Bowman said. “We’re not even close to the amount of times reported as we were last time. So basically we’re going to keep doing what we’ve been doing. It was a mistake and we’ll try to catch it next time.”
According to Facebook policy, there are two ways to shut down a page: filing for a memorialized account upon the admin’s death or it being reported for contract abuse.
Last year, an article for the Huffington Post covered the growth of confession pages and their popularity among college students due to their anonymity. Although Facebook policies don’t allow anonymous posts, different survey tools are the key to the success of these pages.
“Generally, the pages get around Facebook rules that require commenters’ names by using online survey tools,” author Amy Bounds wrote. “Someone who wants to post a confession can type it into a blank box, then the confession goes to the administrator of the page without any information identifying the poster.”
While Confessions uses a similar survey tool called SurveyMonkey, the Compliments page uses Google Drive to maintain anonymity.
With past reports, the anonymity of the page has previously been questioned. Bowman said all the page admins see are the IP addresses. Due to past submissions, which could have potentially put the safety of both SDSU students and the submitter into danger, the admins need the IP addresses in case a report to the authorities is necessary. Submissions about school shootings or suicide threats are generally reported by the page admins, Bowman said.
Student Life & Leadership Assistant Student Life Advisor Richard Eberheart said that regardless of the content on the site, SLL would not be able to shut down the page permanently due to issues pertaining to freedom of speech.
“The university does not endorse or sponsor those pages. People have a right to create and write things on the internet, no matter how offensive they may be,” Chief Communications Officer Greg Block said.
Hospitality and tourism junior Hannah Grossman said the anonymity from hiding behind a screen is what gives students the courage to say the things they say.
“I think the page represents (SDSU students) poorly because anyone who needs to say something anonymously is obviously not representing themselves or the school well,” Grossman said. “The whole point of the page is to say things you wouldn’t normally say, which means it’s not something you would want your name to be on. They are exploiting other people without having the courage to exploit themselves.”
Bowman said the reason behind the first Facebook shutdown a year ago was due to their attempts at moving to a website, which crashed almost immediately. Even with the substantial of negative feedback from parents, sororities, friends and more, according to Bowman the admins have no plans of shutting the page down any time soon.
