Little Gossip site is back in action - Let's make 2012 the year in which governments act against this site.

[Cheapskate]

Hello - I joined mumsnet to post this message - hoping you can help....

Little Gossip is now active again in the UK.

Students at my daughters college are anonymously posting libelous and cruel statements about her friends... I have contacted the college principal and he has authored an e-petition to the Department of Education. I have been able to dig out some information regarding who holds the owner information for the web content (see contact details below for reporting abuse to the hosting company).

Response from the domain name registrants 'Domains by Proxy'

Dear Richard Barnett,

We are in receipt of your correspondence regarding LITTLEGOSSIP.COM. Please be advised that Domains By Proxy ("DBP") provides a private registration service that allows its customers to register domain names without listing their contact information in the public WHOIS database. Since DBP is listed as the registrant of the domain name, it may appear that DBP operates or has an interest in the domain name or website. That is not the case; DBP is neither a domain name registrar, nor a hosting provider and has no control over website content.

Therefore, we highly recommend you contact the hosting provider (who can affect website content) and they will investigate the issue. Generally, the DNS name server operators (identified in the Whois listing) and the hosting providers are the same entity. For your convenience, we have listed the hosting provider below:

Hosting Provider:
LEASEWEB
P.O. Box 93054
1090BB AMSTERDAM
Netherlands
www.leaseweb.com
[email protected]
Phone +31 20 3162880

In addition to contacting the hosting provider, you may reply to this email and request us to forward your complaint and contact information to the customer. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee the customer will reply, but this is yet another option for you to pursue.

Finally, should you still desire our customer's identity, we will require a properly served subpoena. You may view our subpoena policies here: www.domainsbyproxy.com/policy/Subpoena.aspx

Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Very truly yours, etc

*

Sorry to re-awaken this thread - and also if there are more recent ones I could have added to.

Let's close this site - now hosted in Holland? - down for good.

Many thanks - Richard.

The above post was left by Mumsnet member Richard on a thread set up over a year ago. I thought it might be helpful if we started a fresh thread. Little Gossip is back in operation - has been for a little while. It has I think a new owner and a new web hoster.
I know many parents and their children who have experienced being badly bullied on this site which allows posts to be made anonymously.
Any ideas for the best way ahead.?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/22/little-gossip-website-reported-to-police-for-allowing-children-to-bully-each-other_n_1164989.html

How widespread a problem is this? I've just looked at it, and not a single college or school I can think of is listed.

Lettle, Cambridge is listed :o

Hi, I assure you that there are hundreds of schools (and colleges) listed. Literally hundreds - just search under united kingdon and the menu for that country. For example - Priory C of E, Millfield, Charterhouse, Reigate Sixth Form, St Alfreds Sixth Form, Bridgwater, Wells Cathedral, Sutton High.... And hundreds more. Please don't think that this is not a big problem. It really is for many school communities - not to mention universities. But the focus should be on protecting children from abuse online. Here are some of the news reports on this in the past few weeks alone. The BBC Panorama is appparently filming a special on this site and online bullying to be broadcast in January some time.

www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/Warnings-Little-Gossip-website/story-14199315-detail/story.html
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8971004/Head-teacher-Andre-Sohatski-calls-police-over-bullying-gossip-website.html
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-16302873

Please take a look at the site Little Gossip and see for yourself. It is not unusual for anonymous students to leave comments about other children that encourage them to self harm, to take their lives. The comments are not just a little rude but deeply offensive - racist, sexually offensive, homophobic - basically there are no limits to the nastiness of some of these remarks. And the child who is being picked on is powerless to fight back. Their name then features in any search engine as the site is indexed by search engines. So if the child has maybe an unusual name then this is likely to be the first thing that comes up in Google when you search on their name - you read the offensive comment left on Little Gossip. (Other forum type sites have software that stops the content being automatically indexed by search engines.) This makes it even more damaging to the reputation of the child - not to mention the distress that they suffer.
Many many head teachers are having to deal with this right now and as it happens outside the school gates they are left to manage the damage caused. Mumsnet does not allow people to leave offensive bullying comments about others on this site - it is responsibily run. That is why we feel safe posting here - we owe it to young people in the UK to protect them from the damage caused by what happens on this site.

[email protected]

This is the email address of the security officer at Lease Web in Holland who are I believe the host servers.
They have a policy against abusive content. Do email him if you feel that the content on the site is abusive and that Lease Web needs to be made aware of the fact.

This is vile and horrifying, and I can't believe a website like this is allowed to run, unchecked, unmonitored, or at all.

My son's (private, secondary) school is not on this site, and when I tried a few minutes ago to look at the site his school has put a strongly worded message on the first page which says that even though comments left on this site might be anonymous, every computer has an isp number, and the school will trace individuals who attempt to harass or bully other people, or who leave unpleasant remarks, through their computer's isp number.

Can individual schools block access to this site from their pupils? (sorry, am pretty ignorant about how these websites work.) And if not, surely individual schools could do what my son's school has done, and make it clear that they will take action if they see anything untoward posted about their pupils?

This site is utterly disgusting.

There was a similar site in Germany last year called I Share Gossip, which contained some horrible comments on kids in DD1's class. Interestingly it seems more prevalent among grammar school children and academic high achievers - the psychological explanation was that these kids choose 'hidden' forms of rebellion out of frustration rather than disrupting class or lurking around town as a feral hoodie. It gets taken very seriously in Germany because there have been two incidents of secondary school boys going on shooting sprees in schools.

The site has now been officially banned, but before that happened one very effective way of countering it was by having older kids from year 11/12 post disparaging comments about the site being childish and silly, eg 'omg can't believe you year 7 brats are doing something so stupid'.

Superdragonmama - It is not the school that left that message but a parent I think from another school in the West Country - because there were so many horrid comments appearing on there. Might be worth telling your son's school if it is active over the Christmas so that tthey can keep an eye on it.
In answer to your question, I understand that many school head teachers have directly contacted the site to request that their school be removed. They have not complied with this. The site apparently has a new owner for the past year - and they do not seem to respond positively to requests to have schools removed. Even though the site says it is for over 18.s
At present the host service provider is Lease Web in Holland. I know many schools are even contacting the Dutch authorities and the UK authorities to try and act against the site.
There is a petition here - one school head teacher in Surrey has set up (reigate sixth form I think) Please sign it as it is brilliant that he is bothering to take this so seriously. epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/23177
Also write to your local MP. A growing number are raising the problem with the relevant government departments - the more people that put pressure on them to do so the better.
Thanks!

Tenbrist - good idea. Peer pressure might work to put some off. Trouble is in the UK a lot of the comments are being left by year 11's so thats a terrrible example.
I would be really interested to know what they did in Germany - how did they ban it?

I've read about this in the papers. Will have a look at the links.

Thanks meglet.
The campaign against is gaining momentum but needs far more support from parents across the UK.

Thanks Cheapskate. Have signed petition, and will spread the word. And thanks for your explanation about how the site works.

The college my DD went to at 14 is there, and so is the one she is going to for 6th form in September. Both have awful stuff on and neither college cater for over 18s (except top of 6th form, but most are under 18).

Site is poisonous. I thought we'd won a vicotry to get rid beforehand. Why do people want to post this stuff?

Will sign petition and look to see what else I can do. Maybe write to the colleges I know of.

"I would be really interested to know what they did in Germany - how did they ban it?"

I don't know exactly, but it has certainly been banned by central government. One of the problems was that the server was based in Sweden, but it seems to have been effectively blocked nevertheless (I've just checked that it still doesn't show up). I do think that stronger legislation exists in Germany to ban websites, publications, political parties etc which are deemed a danger to society. (Many) people in Britain seem more concerned with defending the free market, unfortunately.

MusicPosy. I have no idea why people write that kind of stuff. They do it because they think they can get away with it and hide behind the site's promise of anonymity. It is the same whatever school - or college across the UK. There are even two primary aged schools on there. I don't know who owns the site now as its been sold by a young man in Taunton who used to own it.

I think it would help if people write to their local MP as it is an issue affecting lots of younger constituents, their families and schools. Emailing lease web in Holland is worth trying - they have a policy against abusive content which really this must break. Also if you see a really nasty comment on the site itself then add a comment reminding the poster of the harm they are doing. I know they may just ignore it but at least it means the victim who is being bullied knows that there are people out there who care and are standing up to the bully. Interestingly the site does not allow you to write the word bully or bullying on its comment box!

Tenebrist - I tried reading an article on this German site you mentioned but my German wasn't really up to it!! Will try again with a dictionary...
Free market v preventing danger to society.That is a really interesting debate - I suppose the reason why Germany has tighter restrictions are historical. For the vast majority of people, the internet it is not a place to spread nastiness or hate. But how do you protect innocent people from becoming the target of bullies? It is as if our legal system isn't designed to operate confidently when it comes to the internet.

Sorry to the Mumsnetters who were unhappy about the fact the first post in this thread contained a link to a petition. I genuinely didn't know that was not allowed. In fact I cut and paste the first post (which was written by another Mumsnetter a few weeks ago) as I found it left languishing on an v old thread and thought it deserved a wider audience. I'm really sorry for getting that wrong!

Battled my way through two particularly obscure Captchas to sign.

Poisonous website that encourages the very worst side of humanity by giving it a vehicle to flourish. I love the internet, I really do, but it makes it much easier for people to unfetter their nastiest impulses and feed on those of others in a sort of almost-sanctioned way.

You can hear the excuses now can't you:

'Oh, everybody does it!'
'It's just a bit of fun, it doesn't mean anything'
'You have to join in or you get it done to you'

Poor kids.

A lot of the time the kids who post defend it by saying its just 'banter'.
But I bet it doesnt feel like that to the children who are bullied there.

Heard that Panorama is planning a programme about this site for early Feb.

Thanks to Cheapskate for reposting my original message.
Panorama were filming at Reigate a bit before Christmas.
Added discussion on Mumsnet will help build momentum.

Let's get this site closed!

This is site is very disturbing. In particular I find it worrying that a lot of the comments are directed at girls and are very much sexualised and/or to do with appearance, calling girls slags etc. Often one girl in particular seems to be targeted.

Ihavewellies
I know thats what struck me - the language used about girls is hard-core. Also about the boys to be fair - but the focus is most often on sexually taunting and humilating girls.

I noticed this too. I find it very disturbing that DD1, who is set to go to one of these colleges at 16 in September, could be the target of this kind of thing.