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from the anything-you-say-will-be-used-against-you dept.
The Facebook messaging group was at one point titled "Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens."
It began when about 100 members of Harvard College's incoming freshman class contacted each other through the university's official Class of 2021 Facebook group. They created a messaging group where students could share memes about popular culture — a growing trend on the Internet among students at elite colleges.
But then, the exchanges took a dark turn, according to an article published in the Harvard Crimson on Sunday. Some of the group's members decided to form an offshoot group in which students could share obscene, "R-rated" memes, a student told the Crimson. The founders of the messaging group demanded that students post provocative memes in the main group chat to gain admittance to the smaller group.
The students in the spinoff group exchanged memes and images "mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust and the deaths of children," sometimes directing jokes at specific ethnic or racial groups, the Crimson reported. One message "called the hypothetical hanging of a Mexican child 'piñata time'" while other messages quipped that "abusing children was sexually arousing," according to images of the chat described by the Crimson.
Then, university officials caught on. And in mid-April, after administrators discovered the offensive, racially charged meme exchanges, at least 10 incoming students who participated in the chat received letters informing them that their offers of admission had been revoked.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:06PM (5 children)
I hope they take it even further! I hope they start rejecting admission from people who listen to metal music. I hope they start banning users who have drug-related social media posts, or who use guns.
They will soon cease to be known for producing alumni who are capable of not just thinking, but living outside of the box, and their prestige, admission rates, and endowment will eventually wither and rot as individuals who were rejected for no meritocratic reason are rudely awakened to the fact that thousands of Ivy League graduates are struggling with unemployment as a result of Globalism, and they will sew their brilliance in more fertile fields.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 07 2017, @02:35PM (3 children)
The amount of outrage and grandiose compliments of genius is ridiculous. What happened to "its a private business sorry but they can do what they want"? Oh,this time they targeted people you like? I am shocked that the right wingers are falling over themselves to condemn the punishment of horrible little shits getting off on hate culture. SHOCKED I say!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday June 07 2017, @04:27PM
> What happened to "its a private business..."
It got a squiggly red line under it.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday June 07 2017, @05:28PM
And meanwhile, the President banning people from his Twitter necause they hurt his precious feelings is totally fine. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Jiro on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:10PM
"It's a private business" just means that the private business's activity shouldn't be made illegal. It doesn't mean you can't complain about the private business. In fact, you're supposed to complain about the private business in order to put pressure on them.
It's perfectly legal to sell bad-tasting restaurant food too. By your reasoning, food critics have no reason to complain about the food, since the restaurant is a private business.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday June 07 2017, @07:46PM
Can universities reject people on the basis of sexual orientation?
Vi vs Emacs?
Tabs vs Spaces?
Semicolons vs not semicolons?
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