College gossip sites are common places to rant and rave about your fellow student body in an anonymous, unproven sort of way. Last year,the most well known site, Juicy Campus, disappeared, but not before causing quite a stir on some campuses. Their traffic was redirected to College ACB (Anonymous Confession Board) via their blog and the question still looms as to whether or not universities should ban sites like College ACB and the even more risque, Campus Gossip Raw, or would this be a violation of freedom of speech?

The Chronicle on Higher Education reports on College ACB:

Millsaps blocked access to the site a month ago after student leaders suggested a review of the site contents, said Brit Katz, vice president for student life and dean of students, in an e-mail to The Chronicle. Millsaps had also banned JuicyCampus.

Dawn Watkins, vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Washington and Lee University, said administrators there pulled the plug late last year after their numerous requests to Mr. Frank to remove most content mentioning the university were denied. Ms. Watkins said a number of reported cases of cyberbullying among first-year female students prompted those requests.

When asked whether restricting access to the site was a freedom-of-speech issue, Ms. Watkins and Mr. Katz both said their primary responsibilities were to prevent anonymous postings that name individuals.

After looking through the sites, I can see where some students would be a little less than pleased to find their name or even worse, a picture of themselves, in a controversial state posted to these sites. I found both sites to be very targeted to sororities and fraternities. On Campus Gossip Raw in particular, the content is heavily targeted to males with posts containing female students at said particular school asking other viewers to weigh in with their opinions which usually tends to lean towards the cruel side. Tell us what you think! Do you use these sites or not and do you think they should be banned from colleges or boycotted?