Reporter's eye - The Only Community has been Embroiled in Controversy

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[Reporter-s Eye] Everytime 영문기사 내부교정2.docx

[Reporter's Eye]

The Only Community has been Embroiled in Controversy

by Lee Hyeon-ju, Culture Editor, twohj1218@mju.ac.kr

The 'Everytime' app is the most commonly used timetable sharing platform for university students, and anonymous bulletin board system is effectively serving as the largest community where in-school opinions can be gathered. The problem is that the anonymous postings in the community have been going too far.

Until the widespread using of 'Everytime,'  students communicated through the school's own community, and social network services such as Facebook.  Since the birth of the 'Everytime' application, which allows users to share schedules with their friends, the number of users of the app has skyrocketed. With the addition of community functions, a public forum for exchange of opinions within universities has moved to that app.

Everytime has played a role as a public forum to gather and promote opinions about unfair incidents in schools. In March, a tip-off was posted on an anonymous message board for Everytime. It was a tip-off that a "look judging contest" of new female students was held at a face-to-face meeting for male students of a department at Seoul National University of Education, and data compiled from their appearance eval‎uations were passed on to graduates. In response, an internal complaint by the students of the department was made known to the students through Everytime, which led to a petition by Blue House National Competition. Through Everytime community, one big movement was created to stop the still rampant sexualization of women in universities and prevent further victims from occurring.

However, community management has been placed in a blind spot. The app deletes problematic posts through an automatic reporting system. But the management system is more sloppy than the school's own community. Whether or not there is a problem in the postings, 'the blind treatment' is determined by the number of pros and cons. This is problematic that blind treatment does not apply when there are fewer 'cons' comments. After all, because there are fewer restrictions than the school community, there are a lot more provocative postings on the  Everytime's anonymous bulletin board.

As the situation becomes more serious, there is a movement to self-reflect, saying, "Everytime app's anonymous bulletin boards, which have established themselves as a gathering place and influential community for sharing lecture eval‎uations and test information, cannot be a hateful place." It started with the intention to have a critical mind about the occurrence of students suffering from hate speech and try to self-reflect through outside public discussion.

In order for the university community application to become a beneficial place for all of us, a change in the perception of users is desperately needed. Our app's bulletin boards are the center of controversy caused by inappropriate hate speech. The app users will need to develop empathy with the perception that those who are hurt by inappropriate postings are fellow students who can pass by and meet on campus.

'Everytime' became a uncomfortable place where hurt fellow students living together in same space, by saying things that unless anonymity, they would not even be able to say in reality. While this app also plays a positive role as a secondhand transaction place for dealing major textbooks at a low price and as a place for sharing diverse information about school life, most of the posts are meaningless and are incredibly low-level, which could not be believed to have been written by intellectuals. It is time for self-cleaning.