London, Dec 22 (IANS) A new website that encourages schoolkids to write anonymous and obscene comments about their peers has exploded in popularity among pupils in the past month.
Perhaps surprisingly, they are the pupils from some of the most prestigious institutions like Eton, St Paul’s, Harrow and others here that appear to be the most enthusiastic users of the website.
Many comments on Little-Gossip.com are obscene, while others are homophobic or threatening.
In one post, a student at Eton made the following barely literate contribution about a peer: ‘mate your a ******* wannabe, u spend all of dads cash on your drug addiction.’
Another pupil at Emanuel School in Battersea, South London, wrote about a girl at the school: ‘****** is working her way through the boys, but unfortunately hasn’t made any girl friends along the way, what will she do when she runs out of boys? And who is her next target?’
Comments made on the site are so often obscene that 10 percent of posts submitted to the site are reported by users for deletion, the Daily Mail reports.
Parents and headteachers are furious that their pupils are so freely spreading hurtful rumours about one another.
Charlotte Macleod, mother of four children at The Harrodian School in Barnes, South West London, said: ‘What chills me is the viciousness of these unmoderated and anonymous posts.’
‘My 15-year-old daughter’s friends are being mocked, sneered at and goaded. True or false, these personal and sexual taunts are universally available online.’
Teachers at James Allen’s Girls’ School in Dulwich, South East London, were alerted to the site by a parent Dec 16. Since then they have banned students from using it.
The school’s headteacher Marion Gibbs said: ‘I’m just so angry that this vehicle for cyber-bullying exists. I can’t imagine what kind of a person wants to set up a site like this. It must be some sick person.’
At Tormead School for Girls in Guildford in Surrey, the site has become such a problem among the girls in Year 7 that the headteacher, Christina Foord, is threatening recriminations to any student found to have used it inappropriately.
