Resolution: Student Union Condemns RateBU

The BU Student Union has released an official resolution condemning the website RateBU.com, the Quad learned via email this evening. RateBU, a site that encourages BU students to upload pictures of female students from Facebook and rate them against each other, launched on Friday and had seen over 3,000 users sign up as of Monday. The Quad revealed the site’s founder, who had previously remained anonymous, to be College of Engineering Sophomore Justin Doody in an article published on Sunday.

Here’s the full text of the Union’s resolution:

Whereas, the website ratebu.com creates a platform for Boston University students to rate their female peers, in some cases without the females’ consent , and encourages a culture of judgment and objectification;

Whereas, ratebu.com contributes to a devaluation of students by allowing judgment based solely on a photo;

Whereas, ratebu.com detracts from a feeling of comfort and safety on campus, and extends judgment on the internet into daily life at Boston University by associating real names with photos;

Resolved, the Boston University Student Union hereby condemns ratebu.com as an offensive website that does not accurately represent the views of the student body or the culture that the student body strives to create. As a representative organization of the Boston University population, the Student Union discourages further use of the website.

Resolved, The Boston University Student Union shall form an ad hoc committee in conjunction with the Boston University Women’s Resource Center to address ratebu.com and other websites found to be equally offensive and inappropriate.

About Gabe Stein

Gabe Stein (CAS '11), was the founding CTO and Associate Publisher of the Quad.

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12 Comments on “Resolution: Student Union Condemns RateBU”

    1. It’s completely legal and if there’s anyone to blame for the legality it’s facebook itself. But of course people always seem to ignore the terms of a website when signing up and then feel that they have the right to complain about them if they feel wronged.

      1. I think Cate’s point, which I agree with, is it would be nice to see a lawyer’s perspective because at this point, all we have is some college kids who may or may not have taken media law’s “legal” advice and opinions.

    1. Votes are only going up because in order to see all the pictures, a person must keep voting to see the next set of pictures; so if girls are trying to see if their pictures are up on this site they have to go through the hassle of this process.

  1. i’ve realized that people keep voting so that they can browse the pictures and see if anyone they know pops up but you don’t have to do that. just reload the page and it’ll bring up another set of pictures. not votes necessary. i refuse to vote on the stupid thing, but i’m concerned that i’ve already seen so many familiar faces. i’m terrified i’ll see myself.

  2. C’mon guys. Our lives are already up on Facebook for our inflated group of “friends” to see at their leisure anyway. This merely provides a hub that tracks and streamlines what Facebook is used for oftentimes anyway. It’s not as if the site has a section labeled “The Dog Pound” where all of the pictures of women who receive the least amount of votes can be viewed. There’s no “bottom fifteen”. This is really just a lesson to those of you that are just realizing now what Facebook is–a portal into your life for the rest of the internet. Once a picture is on the internet, it’s on the internet. People can find it and use it for what they please. Period. Don’t like it? Don’t post pictures of yourself on Facebook.

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