Rate Your Shag: A Step Too Far?

UPDATE, 7PM: The page has now been removed (whether by Facebook or the admins is unclear)

It’s exam season and procrastination is hitting an all time high across campus. Invariably, Facebook pages are popping up everywhere, but the latest – – leaves a bad taste in the mouth for students.

The page was created today and at the time of writing has over 400 likes, making reach fairly minimal. The page gives Southampton students the chance to let everybody know who is good in bed and who really isn’t, inviting people to use a scoring system of 1-10 to crudely ‘rate your shag’.

At risk of being the ‘ultimate fun sponge’, I believe that this page has the potential to be seriously harmful for students. Rate your shag directly names people and is extremely harsh towards them.

Like shagging a virgin. At least the ears gave me something to hold on to.

The posts written are of very similar style and tone which suggests that some of them are either made up or edited before being published. The page could be used for cyber bullying, easily depending on the mood of the admins, and may become an outlet for malicious material. ‘Rate your shag’ often describes sex involving freshers, JCR’s or halls and is easy to find on Facebook as it contains ‘Southampton University’ in the name. Soon, new students for the incoming academic year will start searching Facebook for information about the University. Is perusing ‘rate your shag’ before they even get here really a good thing?

Finally, ‘Rate your shag’ used copyrighted University of Southampton promotion material and edited it as the cover photo (which has since been removed and replaced with a photo of the Palace of Dreams). I know from experience of being a Soton Tab editor that using images without permission gets them rather worked up!

Social media is an extremely powerful tool and students today are growing up with the world watching them. Media law is constantly changing to accommodate the new weird and wonderful ways people find to hurt each other. It’s worth remembering that whatever you do online can be traced back to you; I hope Southampton University: Rate your shag can handle the responsibility.

If any of the page admins are reading this, a word of warning: is risking your place at university worth it? Not in the slightest.

UPDATE: Rate your Shag appears to have been deleted from facebook.

procrastinating 27 May 2013 at 4:38 PM

I swear we had a similar page that caused similar outrage last year..?

Reply

StudentMay 27th, 2013 at 10:52 PM

We seem to every year, around summer exam time. I remember fit finder – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FitFinder

Soton 27 May 2013 at 4:45 PM

A number of the posts are undoubtedly unlawful. If my name had been put on there, I’d strongly consider bringing a defamation claim both against the content provider and the person that submitted it. It is clear libel and is certainly actionable.

NameMay 27th, 2013 at 4:59 PM

How insecure do you have to be to take legal action against someone who claims on a fb group that you’re bad in bed?
Also, it’s obvious most of these are made up/in jokes. It’ll die within a month.

SouthernerMay 31st, 2013 at 9:57 PM

Yeah, but if someone made a hurtful comment about you in any other regard, i.e about your race or disability, then there would be outrage. But somehow being rude about your private life, and airing your extremely dirty laundry, is ok? If it’s made up, then that’s even worse because it’s not even true and those people at the other end of it will have to live with the jeers, true or false. The legal case thing is a bit OTT, there are simpler ways to ruin someone.

facepalmMay 27th, 2013 at 4:59 PM

to what end? a big legal bill?

….are you a first or a second year law student? sounds like you’ve learned some big words but not a whole load of common sense!

Big legal bill?May 27th, 2013 at 5:36 PM

Big legal bill? Clearly, you’ve never heard of a no win-no fee arrangement. Not that silly really.

lawyeredMay 27th, 2013 at 6:33 PM

you still have to pay the other sides costs if you lose, so could be a very big legal depending on their solicitors.

RepresentedMay 29th, 2013 at 12:48 PM

Get your skates on the rules on conditional fee agreements is changing, not that you didn’t know that already….

concerned citizenMay 27th, 2013 at 5:37 PM

you must be very insecure about yourself if you cant handle this kinda thing. i genuinely feel very sorry for you. get a life.

Soton 27 May 2013 at 5:29 PM