In 2013, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania published a study in which they conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of internet users on four continents. solid 6/10 at the hottest.. Impact of Greek Life on Leadership Development. And to those Donlon freshmen: Youre probably going to find much higher quality reading in that FWS book you were going to SparkNotes than on Greekrank. GreekRank thrives on anonymity anonymity that breeds the downright mean material thats so prevalent on the site. Whistleblowers report news that companies and governments would prefer to suppress; human rights workers struggle against repressive governments; parents try to create a safe way for children to explore; victims of domestic violence attempt to rebuild their lives where abusers cannot follow. However, the past couple of years of recruitment have left some Greek leaders at Vanderbilt, like rising junior and Panhellenic Vice President of Recruitment Alina Husain, questioning if Greekrank does more harm than good. Youre free to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone. As one court observed in a case handled by EFF along with the ACLU of Washington, "[T]he free exchange of ideas on the Internet is driven in large part by the ability of Internet users to communicate anonymously.". But if were going to reassign real cultural value to anonymity; to secure it as a basic right people are entitled to, its going to take a lot more than just individual action, and a lot more than encryption apps you can load up your phone with. Cornell students love competition just ask anybody who thought about joining a business club at Cornell. Using chat rooms anonymously can also give you more control over how you . In 2021, diversity and inclusion should be the norm, not a standard to shoot for. You cancel at any time. Do we believe what people say when an interviewer asks them [about privacy], or do we believe their purchasing habits?. The most common format of posts is a ranking, where undergraduates with all knowing authority decide which Greek organization comes out on top. It became a serious problem, one that really affected someones mental health, she said. Candidates for student body president discuss goals in debate Tuesday, Arizona baseball slugs their way to a 9-run win, Campus highlights: The UA offers affordable, eco-friendly bike services, Arizona Baseball goes 1-2 against West Virginia, COMIC: Paleontology 101 #2 Protoceratops, What to expect at this years Tucson Festival of Books. Its a website dedicated to ranking and commenting on different sororities and fraternities on campus. She has been on the staff since her freshman year. Emails during late August last year show the UBC admin discussing how to address the issue after a sorority member reached out to President Santa Onos office, describing her damaging experiences of bullying on Greekrank. will not be displayed. On UBCs forum, frequent anonymous comments target and tear down individuals and sorority chapters using their initials. Beyond the blatantly racist, homophobic and discriminatory posts which frequently make their way on to the website, much of the content appears to be harmless. The Daily Wildcat Presents:Confronting Scarcity. Not knowing if its friends or strangers posting your name, job or what you study, Greekrank has molded a culture of distress and insecurity. Recent events have further shown that the websites veil of anonymity allows students to spread hatred and bigotry that has no place on Vanderbilts campus, Husain said. Apart from hearing questions about Greekrank from Potential New Members (PNMs), he does not feel it has significantly affected anyones actual rush process. The difference today is that even in a big city, each of us leaves breadcrumbs that an investigator can follow.. Some of the top ranking sororities were an immediate non-fit for me when I actually went through the process, Potter said. "Recent events have further shown that the website's veil of anonymity allows students to spread hatred and bigotry that has no place on Vanderbilt's campus," Husain said. Its sad that lot of people are supporting whoever wrote that post. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. While conducting extremely scientific research (I'm just a hotelie, so you. The online site serves as a place to rate and review different fraternity and sorority chapters at universities across the United States, giving incoming freshmen an inside look at a chapters standing on campus before formal rush. But we also need a private self an internal space where we can reflect on our own thoughts and feelings apart from outside influence, where we can just be with our own psyche. Potter instantly realized that their comments contributed to a destructive cycle of women making decisions based on the opinions of men, she said. God forbid Sigma Chi plans an event with a sorority that @greekgod labeled as a bunch of outcasts who smell weird and dont fit the stereotype. 1st tier: Sigma Phi Epsilon () Sigma Alpha Epsilon () Pi Kappa Phi .Read More. A reader will witness their classmates, suitemates and teammates tearing into one another for the sake of anonymous online clout. In addition to shooting for The Hustler, she was the Development Coordinator for Camp Kesem at Vanderbilt, works in a research lab on campus and plays Club Tennis. Still, there are plenty of instances in which anonymity is problematic, even dangerous. Your happiness should not be contingent on the baseless, ignorant and probably inaccurate opinions of a frat bro. GreekRank is an independent site that has no ties with the University. The opinions expressed in this article are the writers own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus. Request for your school to be featured on GreekRank. Lets face it; who really cares if you are ranked one tier above another house on a sinking ship anyways. The toxic content that permeates through the message boards and sorority and fraternity pages is abhorrent and does not accurately represent the inclusivity of Greek Life at the UA. Its much harder to be anonymous than it was 20 years ago, at least from the biggest companies and the government, says Peter Swire, professor of law and ethics at Georgia Institute of Technology, and who served on US President Barack Obamas Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology. What? These sisterhoods and brotherhoods are supposed to be welcoming and a support group for all of the members. var corner_video = 'left'; This website is not controlled by UBC and therefore not subject to university oversight, said Ramsey in a statement to The Ubyssey. Science/Health. I want to end with my response to the people who leave these nasty comments on houses pages: get a hobby and stay off the internet. After the reputation section, you will have the opportunity to rate the house in different categories including friendliness, social life and popularity. Assuming that means white, skinny and wealthy, I think this is a reason why the university needs more than just a one-time, two-hour diversity training for undergraduates. Kappa Delta: 3.412 You choose. As long as someone knows something about you, they can probably find other things about you, and do it really successfully more than they have in the past.. Its going to take governments, advertisers, and tech corporations worldwide to agree on a baseline system of ethics. All Content 2023, The Daily Wildcat. (Credit: Getty Images), Its become increasingly clear that its a losing game, Ohm says on achieving total anonymity in 2017. The problem with that mentality is that many people do. In a system that has major issues, from systematic racism and classism to a sexual assault crisis, Greekrank does nothing but fuel the flame. That doesnt change because of the internet.. 2 replies. In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century. Career coaches worldwide trumpet the professional importance of having a fleshed-out public LinkedIn photo complete with full name, headshot, full work history and more. Personal info flies freely and wildly across the web, often on our volition: Instagrammed selfies of ourselves and loved ones, complete with geotagged locations. GreekRank is not a "real" and "honest" review of any campus chapter. Alex Samuels is a University of Texas-Austin and a USA TODAY College correspondent. These long-standing rights to anonymity and the protections it affords are critically important for the Internet. Especially during recruitment times, things tend to escalate quite a lot because obviously you want incoming members to think certain sororities are better than the other.. These chapters are ranked on popularity, social life, friendliness, sisterhood, and other factors. I wonder if the approach is to help students get their individual names and identities removed, rather than UBC, wrote Carry in a September 1 email. In todays hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Eva Pace ('22) is the former Life Editor for The Vanderbilt Hustler. [Anonymous users] were telling her to kill herself, leave UBC, leave the Greek system. High School Reunion Tournament, No. In any case, efforts to completely anonymise our activities are more or less futile: With the rise of the internet of things, more and more of the devices we use every day will require our . Be notified when someone replies to your post. There is a group of people with feelings on the receiving end of these nasty comments. NEW ON GREEKRANK . . Our increased dependence on smart devices erodes anonymity. For example, an advert could flash on your mobile phones screen offering a coupon for a store youre half a mile away from. Rating their looks? We can encourage those freshmen not yet introduced to the Greek system at Cornell to not waste their time memorizing online rankings. But Gulley says she feels as though the statement isnt enough. For a healthy and productive Greek system to exist, there must be a sense of mutual respect between houses, and GreekRank is a major threat to this. Top Philanthropy Events - Spring 2019. The site places a major emphasis on status and reputation that is not representative of Greek Life. Emails between VP Students Ainsley Carry and Senior Director of Student Engagement Amandeep Breen in early September obtained through the FOI request floated an idea to help students draft a letter requesting Greekrank to have UBCs forum removed from the site. Your negativity is not welcome here. And Im not even being clich. And while some people are taking basic steps to preserve anonymity, like deleting their browsing history, many users who say they value anonymity arent really walking the walk. Be notified when someone replies to your post. In the past we have asked members of [the] UBC Greek community to refrain from contributing any comments to this website. (Credit: Getty Images). The Cornell Daily Sun Side note: weRead More. You will remain anonymous and your email It was the 1990s and on my fathers work computer. In the recent surge of the Abolish Greek Life movement at Vanderbilt, Greekrank has been frequently cited as a platform through which hateful comments from Greek members have been amplified. 1. Instead, Greek houses can use their many appeals to become campus leaders. Technically, its not [UBCs] responsibility, but its affecting lives at this point. Yes, these are actual comments I found on the UA GreekRank page. Rising sophomore Steph Potter said she saw the rankings herself but became painfully aware of how misleading they could be when she finally rushed.. Best Cities to Move to Post-Graduation. receive a verification email after you submit the post. I dont think it gives any real idea of what chapter would be a good fit. The comment sections are moderated by our Editor-in-Chief, Rachael Perrotta, and our Social Media Director, Chloe Postlewaite. Anonymous chatting enables you to express your personality and opinions with strangers, giving you the opportunity to connect without worrying about being judged. Our identity is formed by both. As a senior who has watched this play out for three years, I can guarantee you: ranking does not matter. You will has been frequently cited as a platform through which hateful comments from Greek members have been amplified. 1 reply; 0; 1; 117 Views; With the first month of 2021 in the books, we're ranking the best sororities so far. President of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity and rising senior Graham Thompson said he has had a relatively different experience. She's theRead More. The anonymity the site provides brings out the absolute worst in people. The Daily Wildcat, straight to your inbox. The damage Greekrank causes cannot be overstated, for rush and really the entire system, Standard said. Greekrank is a national website that allows users to compare, rate and discuss fraternities and sororities by campus. Ten months later, the discussion board is still active. A frequently cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads: Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. Follow him on Twitter at @bryan_lufkin. Dont put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper. The Ubyssey regrets this error. If it were, then the ratings would be roughly the same from each commentator and would include a wide variety of perspectives from the campus. SMU released astatement on its website Oct. 29 after word of the post spread around campus, reading: "The content of these anonymous posts on GreekRank is clearly abhorrent and would not represent standards and values at SMU. Swire says were living in a golden age of surveillance: If youre a person of interest in an investigation, looking up details like financial records, medical records, web history or call history is a breeze. Even though the GreekRank site caught most peoples attention, this isnt about us wanting or needing to be let into their organization, Gulley says. The postings from what may be one person can easily be amplified to incorrectly represent the opinions of many, even if there is no actual affiliation with the group they purport to . The funny thing is, I had no idea rankings of Greek houses existed before I heard all of the girls in line grimacing at the idea of having to even talk to the low lives in bottom-tier houses, frantically referencing Greekrank as their bible. The Daily Wildcat Presents:Al Jisr The Bridge. NEW! I am sure these people understood the risk to themselves and, given the well-expressed fears by their fellow students online, Im sure they understood the risk to the student body as well. The Arizona Daily Wildcat is the award-winning, student-managed and -produced news outlet serving The University of Arizona and greater Tucson since 1899. She is studying Computer Science, Architecture and Business and can be reached at eva.pace@vanderbilt.edu. Swire says that anonymity is a relatively new construct, and that the rise of cities gave rise to it. To give some perspective on my wisdom, I admit, I was engulfed in the saliency of social status for a chunk of my college experience. I give that advice to intelligence agencies, and I give that advice to ordinary people. Because while some people may not care about third parties or governments tracking their purchasing habits, people will definitely care more about being anonymous when it involves people they interact with on a daily basis. The right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page. . Earlier this year, Pew found that most Americans dont trust big institutions like the government or social media sites to protect their personal information and yet, ironically, most Americans dont follow best practices to protect their identities online. The online site serves as a place to rate and review different fraternity and sorority chapters at universities across the United States, giving incoming freshmen an inside look at a chapters standing on campus before formal rush. One could even argue its even detrimental not to divulge at least some info. It does strengthen misogynistic and patriarchal views, because a lot of the posts promote [the stereotype] that us women at UBC sororities can be quite literally ranked by how we look, said Arreza. While there is a banner that comes up before you post which warns against posting names, initials, or other derogatory content, that doesnt deter everyone. Powered by. But companies and advertisers are chasing technology and business deals that pinpoint your exact whereabouts in real-time for personalised advertising. As the Supreme Court has recognized the Internet offers a new and powerful democratic forum in which anyone can become a "pamphleteer" or "a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox. Despite saying he hates the site, rising junior and President of Pi Kappa Alpha Henry Standard said that being a leader in his fraternity requires him to constantly monitor posts related to Pike, taking attention away from his normal duties. However, I have yet to meet someone who will admit that they post on the website; so if you find somebody, theres a columnist in dire need of a source. Rush ranks for everyone By: hi Last Post: 3 hours ago. Of anonymous online clout forum, frequent anonymous comments target and tear individuals! 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