Library-going York students are going to have to return to more traditional methods of flirting with the opposite sex after the popular Facebook page ‘Spotted: University of York Library’ revealed this morning that they would no longer be posting messages on the site amidst “fierce criticism for its content.”
The page, which has gained over 2,500 likes since December 18, was set up for students to reach out to love interests they have spotted in the library by sending messages to the page, which were then posted anonymously “for the rest of York to see.”
Examples of posts include: “To the boy with the Morrissey style haircut and eyes as blue as the ocean, please please please let me get what I want,” however offence was caused by other, more explicit posts, including one accusing a mystery student of being constipated.
A protest page, ‘Stopped?’, was set up on Sunday with the aim of moderating the content of ‘Spotted’ and, within hours of creation, the creators of ‘Spotted’ had decided to call it a day, at least temporarily.
A post on the page in the early hours of Monday morning read: “Because of the petition against it and the concerns raised, WE ARE NO LONGER POSTING MESSAGES. It is simply not worth the trouble and is a waste of everybody’s energy, especially at this time of year when everybody is revising. That is not to say we will not resume at some point, however we would have to look in to some form of moderation to prevent the problem from surfacing again.” All other posts were removed from the page this morning.
Anjali Vyas-Brannick, creator of ‘Stopped?’, wrote on her page: “Not all of the posts on this page are awful, in fact, one just now is trying to help someone locate a lost study buddy (or friend or something). But the sad part is there is way too much body-shaming and silent cat-calling going on. Cat calling is sexual harassment. Everyone has a right to work in a space where this sort of thing does not happen. Let’s make it so.
“I’ve spoken with a few people about this, and we agree that the best thing to do is send a message en masse to the page saying we won’t stand for the sexual harrassment of our fellow students, because it’s just not cool or right.”
After ‘Spotted’ announced that they would cease to post messages, Vyas-Brannick posted again on ‘Stopped?’, this time using her personal account, saying: “the post that I think really irked me was a body-shaming one referring very specifically to someone spending a long time in the toilet – “I’m sorry you’re so constipated”. I think when you hit the point where people can’t take a shit in privacy something’s gone a bit wrong. Cos I reckon if they’d wanted their bowel movements sharing with the world they’d have posted about it themselves, instagrammed the results, or just done it out front on the library bridge, yeah?”
The protest’s success has caused arguments on both Facebook pages, with students leaping to the defence of both sides. Supporter of ‘Spotted’, Tom A-C, commented: “Well what a surprise. At a time where you can get arrested for having an opinion and voicing it via social media. Fuck my dog. Lets all just sit in our rooms alone and never think or have opinions and let the state rule what we can and cannot think.”
Rebecca Davis argued: “Most of what was written was really funny or amusing or sweet. But when messages are posted about a woman’s assets straining at her clothes it becomes sexual harassment and misogynistic. Women do have a right to work in an environment where their sexual features aren’t commented on. It’s not flattering or nice. If you fancy a girl, how about posting that you’re attracted to her or that you think she’s pretty. If a women wanted a man to drool over her norks she’d be at the pub, not in the library.”
Tom A-C’s twopenny libertarianism-lite seems a little over the top…I wasn’t aware the state were taking a special interest in York Spotted.
THIS IS A MOTHER-FLIPPING JOKE! This library is a fucking prison! On Planet Bullshit! In the galaxy of This Sucks Camel Dicks!
I think Tom A-C was probably more likely referring to the wider trend of people getting into legal bother for things they put on the internet.
As his collaborator on an article literally about this sort of thing in reference to the earlier and similar Overheard York row. I take the exact same opinion I did before that Freedom of Speech and crucially of the press (although in this case of course the term press is a tad tenuous) is always more important. People get offended and upset by things, it happens, it is unfeasible to try and eradicate the concept of offended people from the planet. It is however important that people can say what they want. This campaign while well intentioned and admittedly with some legitimate grievances is I feel part (although obviously not directly) of a seemingly wider insidious Leveson and twitter police culture growing towards an Orwellian nightmare, which can grow out of such a simple thing of a world where people’s knee jerk reactions are too readily indulged everytime something upsets them.
I don’t know which side is more entertaining, the side that fancy themselves as future guardian columnists, or the side that got all their political knowledge from V for Vendetta and think Life on Mars was an instruction manual. Pure entertainment
Fuck this shit
Tom Davies: You say this ‘is I feel part… of a seemingly wider insidious… culture growing towards an Orwellian nightmare’
First you admitted that they had legitimate grievances. Then you won’t allow them to bring these to the table (and reach a settlement with the creators of the page) because you read some devious cultural conspiracy into it. If you’ll permit me to be similarly melodramatic, your comments smack of McCarthyist protestation against anything that vaguely questioned the status quo: “oh we can’t have that! That would make us like THE COMMUNISTS!”
This is an issue about members of university community trying to settle grievances with one another, not draw in some external arbiter to dictate what can and cannot be said. Please stop treating this as some kind of war on liberty.
I think there’s a really good quote from Jon Stewart which might be relevant here when he says that the problem of political discourse nowadays is that people want to treat political differences as clashes of civilizations (e.g. liberty and tyranny) rather than what they really are is disagreements in how to run the kind of society we all broadly agree we should have. This reactionary libertarianism is exactly of that kind – not everything is an assault on your freedom
Just as a sidenote if anyone cares, there’s a blonde on floor 3 of the library with a cracking behind.
Another one has emerged for the Heslington East campus. It is all just a little bit of fun, why are people taking everything so seriously?
Sebastien Odell – you make decent points but you sound like Rik Mayall off ‘The Young Ones’. Tone it down.
I wish we could all get along like we used to in middle school… I wish I could bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat it and be happy…
Tom Davies, I thought the point of the Orwellian state was that it used constant and anonymous surveillance,, using media methods to condition thought.
Spotted advocated posting anonymously about people, by anyone at any time (constant anonymous surveillance) using the medium of social networking as its basis, and causing some people to change their attitudes and approaches to working in the library (conditioning thought).
I am not saying that the site was set up as some method to control peoples thoughts and lead to an authoritarian state. Calling either side of the argument Orwellian is problematic. The site offered some light hearted fun (I remember one joking about a student putting a book on fiscal policy advice in the section on the USA from two or three days back) and helpful (people trying to find things) and nice compliments (x person looked good today). However when comments turned to x person looks like a loser (the 90’s called and even they don’t want that look back) or commenting on someones tits (the girl with the tight top has a nice pair) it affects how people feel, and damages the work environment and can create an atmosphere of unease, as it obviously did for some people.
I’m on the page now, seems to be up to me! Last post 1 hour ago.
I agree with Nick.
This is not an opportunity for anyone to martyr themselves over the right for free-speech on campus; The ‘privileges’ of Spotted were abused, the owners were caught out, and it was shut down temporarily until Stopped and Spotted reach an appropriate compromise.
Don’t shit where you eat, and don’t use Orwell as a battering ram to defend your rights to slag people off on a public forum.
Raphael, the problem being raised wasn’t with the existence of the pge, it was with how people were using the site to post things that were offensive and intrusive to people using the library. I think the solution the creators have come to is reasonable
damn my ‘A’ key! *page, not pge
Too many idiots on both sides of the coin of this debate – basically encompasses those who spend too much time in the library – a group of utter mugs. Yawn.
Ok, Ok, I will accept I may have come in a little brash and hyperbolic here. It seems people have understandably misinterpreted an attempt to contextualize my views on the wider picture of what is going in this country {I.e Leveson, people being imprisoned for their tweets etc) in terms of this incident, which I accept is a poor example.
Mr Odell correctly recognizes we do not have as much Freedom of Speech in this country as we perhaps think, but his point seems a tad bizarre. He seems to suggest that because we don’t have total Freedom of Speech here I can’t call things an infringement on Freedom of Speech, surely those people who live in countries without Freedom of Speech who are imprisoned by their government for dissent have still had their Freedom of Speech violated even if there country does not have it, I feel Freedom of Speech is a universal right regardless of whether people have it or not in there respective country.
I think we all agree people should be nice to each other, but it is my firm belief, and feel free to call me a naive idiot, that when people are not nice it is always the best policy to ignore it and get on with your life, I may have reacted too harshly here, but I am at current very afraid of what I see today of British civil liberties eroding in other cases, and though I accept here this is simply as you say a attempt at a compromise between spotted and stopped, and not some sort of authoritarian state intervention, but I do think it is sad that something that was clearly enjoyed by many has been shut down because some people were offended by a minority of it’s content, even if I personally agree that some of the examples given were clearly vulgar.
I don’t get all the people saying this is a matter of freedom of speech. You still have the right say all these things or even post them on your own facebook page. You just no longer have a forum to post horrible things anonymously in. All the people moaning about how this is impacting their freedom of speech are essentially moaning that now people will know who’s saying that the girl across the table has great knockers. If you’re worried about the lack on anonymity, doesn’t that show you know these comments are inappropriate in the first place?
Tom, I have absolutely no idea how you read that in to my posts. Could you possibly put in quotation marks precisely where you think I’ve asserted this point: “Mr Odell correctly recognizes we do not have as much Freedom of Speech in this country as we perhaps think, but his point seems a tad bizarre. He seems to suggest that because we don’t have total Freedom of Speech here I can’t call things an infringement on Freedom of Speech” because I very deliberately did not assert that. If you’re referring to my posts on the facebook page, I am very much not asserting that we do not have as much freedom of speech as we think, I’m asserting that not as many things are a matter of freedom of speech as we think
I also agree with Nick.
Great point Nick. You seem like a good labour chap. Nice one.
Ive not got strong feelings either way about Nick
Sebastian Odell you massive goon stop getting so busy just because you’ve read a book and studied half a lecture on freedom
Can everyone please stop turning this into some huge issue?
There was a facebook group based on anonymous comments on other people in the library.
Another facebook group was set up which was not entirely happy with a lot of the comments on the original group; mainly the overtly sexual ones aimed at women or the ones about people’s toilet habits. So they were asking the makers of the first group if they would mind moderating a bit better.
The makers of the original group went… ‘Ok maybe you’ve got a point; we’ll suspend our group and have a look at it later when we haven’t got exams to worry about’.
No Orwellian conspiracy or crazy plots or assaults on freedom of speech. Two groups of people had an exchange of opinions and decided they should listen to each other, but as they are all quite busy at the moment they’d have a stop gap solution during exams.
If anything this is a brilliant example of the exchange of views possible with the expression of freedom of speech.
So if Tom D, Tom A-C etc. could just chill out about it all and be re-assured that they have the right to be offensive and other people have the right to say ‘hey that offends me’
I would be willing to place money that the people getting upset about all this (men and women) are substandard looking and are just in fact jealous that no-one would want to see their “assets straining at their clothes”
Don’t people have any proper work to do?
Ultimatly, in the library if your bored, your eyes are gonna wonder, I personally like to sit under the stairs so i can catch some fine york upskirt. Perfect wankbank material. What you dont know wont hurt you, so if people thnk they will get offended, then they shouldnt go looking for it. The only people who should go on there are those that are looking for a laugh and can take the banter. Like me. I have the biggest banter stick.
The contrast behind the large amount of babble above and the occassional intelligent comment is staggering. Yet, I did quite enjoy this piece of enlightening input:
‘Too many idiots on both sides of the coin of this debate – basically encompasses those who spend too much time in the library – a group of utter mugs. Yawn.’
A very amusing piss-take!
Hey Will Dog… you keep out from under ‘dem stairs! ‘dem stairs is ma turf!