Dear Bi-College Administration, this is for you.
Yesterday at the BMC Plenary a resolution was presented about banning the social media app Fizz. This was much anticipated by Bryn Mawr students, ready to watch the discourse go down live. A few students spoke for and against it, but to me the most notable moment was when our SGA president asked us how we can possibly build community when we use anonymous platforms to spread harm. While this didn’t spark an in-person outrage due to time limits and (probably) fear of public speaking, the Fizz debates online had started. Hundreds of comments started flooding in.
If anyone were to glance at the app, the hatred is obvious. It comes from all sides. Anonymity has not served the Bi-Co well. For months there have been complaints of harassment. For months people have not faced consequences for their actions. For months people have been posting cruel, sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-disability comments all for the chance at an “upvote.” I remember one of the worst posts I saw, a poll about if a straight man would rather date a girl who had a “flat chest” or a girl who was “a little chubby.” Another post stated: “huge turn off when females go to the gym wtf are you training for.” These posts that may or may not be intentionally inflammatory are cruel. They objectify women. They are sexist. And it’s not just the prevalence of sexism on Fizz. These are just a few out of the hundreds of posts I have seen shaming every group there is. Men get shamed for being men. People get shamed for being people. Minority groups get shamed for being different, for liking different people, or for living life a different way.
And it’s not just Bryn Mawr. Haverford students too spend their time worrying about how they are perceived because of Fizz. Haverford and Bryn Mawr students fight each other weekly about issues of misogyny, ableism, classism, and racism. Despite the fact that most use the app to be politically active, to build community, to make funny jokes, and to give tips on college life, there are the few that hide behind the walls of anonymity to make harmful comments about people’s bodies, people’s race, and people’s sexual identities. And from the bad comes these worse. We fight and we argue. We argue about issues we should be united on. Many students have even been introduced to Fizz before they came to our campuses, posting that they were worried about our community.
The banning of Fizz should now move beyond the student body. Freedom of speech is a right that should come with a moral compass. This right does not extend to defamation, fighting words, or true threats (among others). We have violated this right and the privilege of having an anonymous social media presence. We have lost this privilege because we have harmed so many of our peers. People we live with, thrive with, and people we are supposed to treat with our utmost respect. We are a community. In this community we learn to build trust and to build bonds. To ask not to be bullied and to be bullied more has broken the trust of many fundamental groups of students.
We are all better than this. We can all do better.
I ask the administration to consider this letter carefully. We may be self-governed, but we are still young and need your help and your guidance. We are in college to build real life connections and to figure out how to operate in the real world. I ask you to take this harmful social media platform out of the Bi-Co so that we can learn to foster real connections with each other.
Sincerely,
Xiaohan Brunton
*This article has been updated to correct the statement: “We have lost the privilege of freedom of speech” and to reflect the author’s opinion more clearly. Freedom of speech is a right in the United States that is protected by the First Amendment.
