COLUMN: CC Confessions is, at best, something that should concern us

I have a guilty admission: I’ve lied on CC Confessions.

This summer, I sat around in my underwear and started a fake battle on the Facebook page between two characters who disagreed about how cool parties at my summer residence — 326 Cache La Poudre St. — were.

Fake person number one said the parties were awesome and that the short guy who lived at the house was a stand-up gentleman. Fake person number two vehemently disagreed, calling the short guy an ass hole and bashing our bashes.

I then graduated in my fake confessions to complimenting my housemates, joking about one’s beard and the other’s ridiculous haircut.

After maybe six or seven of these posts, I got bored and moved on. I later learned that many of my friends were doing the same thing — creating fake personalities on CC Confessions to get a rise out of the many regular commenters, all in the name of entertainment.

All in good fun, right? Maybe not.

Those familiar with CC Confessions know that its current manifestation is actually the resurgence of an earlier version of the page, one that was shut down amidst an outrageous string of posts singling out a student’s illness and raising questions about the way that student was dealing with a medical condition.

Many members of the community got involved and, faster than someone could post something on the page about a bowel movement after a Rastall meal, CC Confessions 1.0 was shut down.

I’ll admit that I was one of the many who lamented the end of the original CC Confessions. It was an entertaining outlet that occasionally shed light on real issues at the college and often had me in stitches when a comedically minded poster went to work.

There were occasions where I was fairly shocked, as well, when posts included race, religion, mental illness, sexuality, and assault.

“Is this real?” I thought.

Most colleges and universities across the nation now have their own “confessions” pages on Facebook, and many of those have come under fire.

A professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks lambasted the student newspaper for reposting Facebook confessions in a news article, including one in which “a student commenter suggesting a classmate punch their possibly-pregnant roommate in the stomach to cause her to abort the fetus,” according to College Media Matters.

There are values to CC Confessions, including the unearthing of certain aspects of the college that sometimes get swept under the rug. I do worry about the legitimacy of the site and the posts, though.

I firmly believe in the First Amendment, but I also believe that with freedom of speech comes a great responsibility. When all is said and done, I think that CC Confessions is, at best, something that should concern us.

I think we can do better.

Jesse Paul

Editor-in-Chief