Anonymous posts have been a source of frustration and anxiety across the Bi-College Consortium. For more than a year, students have watched Fizz transform from a lighthearted campus forum into a space where rumors spread quickly and personal attacks go unchecked. As concerns about cyberbullying and community wellbeing continue to grow, this semester’s Plenary will ask Bryn Mawr students to decide whether the college should unsubscribe from the platform altogether.
Fizz, the popular social media app designed to connect college campuses, has been a point of contention in universities across America. Colleges generally have their own server, which students can join using their college email address. Students can post anonymously to their college server. It has been a space for students to rant about their classes, complain about administration, and gossip about their classmates.
The server that Bryn Mawr is part of is unique because it combines both Bryn Mawr and Haverford students into a Bi-College server. When it was first introduced last school year, I wrote about the potential issues it could raise, including cybersecurity and privacy concerns, as well as risks to student wellbeing.
Since then, Fizz has not proven to be the innocent, connection-building platform many students hoped it would be. Instead, its anonymous posting feature emboldens users to act unkindly, and sometimes even maliciously, toward students and faculty. Now, a year after its introduction, these concerns have become serious enough that Bryn Mawr Student Government Association’s Representative Counsel voted to include a resolution calling for a ban on Fizz at this semester’s Plenary.
Students at the SGA RepCo Plenary meeting raised concerns that Fizz was a breeding ground for cyberbullying against community members. SGA president Esénia Bañuelos, BMC ’26, described being “harassed for a week straight” after sending out six emails in one day. SGA secretary Evan Pineo, BMC ’28, shared that after people posted anonymously saying “horrible things” about the Bryn Mawr Night Owls, an acapella group on campus that she is a part of, she felt extremely anxious being on campus. Other members of RepCo echoed how being talked about negatively online affected their mental health.
Fizz is virtually unregulated and anonymous. As with many similar platforms on the internet, this combination has allowed people to be unfair, untruthful, and unkind to their peers. Indeed, the anonymous nature of Fizz also runs counter to the spirit of the Bryn Mawr Honor Code, which prides itself on accountability and fostering a positive and welcoming community. The RepCo also discussed that on other platforms, if members of the honor board felt that a post was violating the honor code, they could reach out to the poster and be able to successfully get it removed. However, on Fizz, users completely disregarded these concerns.
The Honor Code relies on personal accountability to create a safe and healthy environment on campus. When students are allowed to publicly violate the honor code with no consequences, it degrades the validity and value of the Honor Code and the Honor Board, and that hurts our community on and off Fizz.
