The blog is very clear about the author understanding that other people were saying it was a problem.

The blog is also very clear that the author, personally, does not understand why this is a problem.

I meant he's being disengeious in being surprised about the dean. like this should have been obvious to him, obv if you make something like this, you will face consequences...

I meant he's being disengeious in being surprised about the dean. like this should have been obvious to him, obv if you make something like this, you will face consequences...

What's a "tea" situation?

It's incredible to me that you don't feel any responsibility for a platform that you created. What happens on the platform is shaped directly by the choices you make as its creator - to be anonymous or identifiable, what the topics of discussion are, whether moderation happens.

By allowing anonymous commentary, scraping every student's data and seeding the conversation around "rumors", you created an environment that is perfect for targeted harassment. You created the platform and maintained it; what happens on that platform is absolutely your responsibility.

I highly recommend that you take this opportunity to do some introspection and consider why so many people were upset.

There are several legal issues, including:

- You created profiles for students without consent

- You enabled anonymous posts about identifiable individuals

- There was no effective moderation/control system

Core issue: once you're aware of harmful content, you’re expected to act. If you don't address it in a reasonable time, you can become legally liable.

So you made JuicyCampus[0]/YikYak[1] and are surprised you’re being ostracized for it?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuicyCampus

[1]: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/07/yik-yak-re-em...

You might have gotten positive acknowledgement of the technical work if you were like, 13. By your age (which I assume is greater than 16 or 17) you're expected to understand things like "not enabling anonymous attackers to harass the shit out of literally anyone at your entire school with impunity".

"Why would a school get mad that I built a website that had stolen nude photos of the female students that I found on revenge-porn sites? They should be proud of me for building something that all the male students love and the female students view daily to make sure they aren't on it. 100% of students use it!"

Sounds a little bit like that.

If this is your viewpoint, that people should be proud of you for creating a platform for gossip and bullying, where it has real deleterious and negative effects on people's lives, then im going to say it - you are a legitimately selfish person who lacks empathy.

Seed funders are likely notice these personality traits and refuse to invest, because someone with those qualities is an investment risk for multiple reasons. For example, in this story you've infringed a brand name, scraped and used personal data without permissions - likely also breaking terms of use, created accounts portraying real people without their permission, established a system to defame (the relationship component), created unwanted spam (emailing university emails automatically) and failed to have in place appropriate moderation. Why would investors put their money against such a risky proposition?

I really hope you'll find something in life to live for that actually benefits people.

Here’s where I think you went wrong:

1. IT Act 2000 — Section 66C / 66D (Identity Fraud / Impersonation) You student data and sent emails appearing to come from or relate to official IIT systems. The email notification system especially is sketchy. sending emails to official addresses using student identity data without consent borders on unauthorized use of identity/credentials.

2. IT Act 2000 — Section 43 (Unauthorized Access / Data Theft) Scraping student data from IIT Delhi’s internal systems without authorization is almost certainly a violation here. Section 43 covers unauthorized access to computer systems and extraction of data.

3. Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices) Rules, 2011 You collected and published sensitive personal data (romantic relationships, social associations) without consent, no privacy policy, no opt-out. This is a clear violation of the SPDI Rules under the IT Act.

4. Indian Penal Code Section 499/500 — Defamation The platform explicitly hosted rumors, gossip, and accusations (dating history, “haters”). Anonymous posts that damage reputation = defamation. As the platform operator and publisher, you have exposure. Unlike Twitter or Reddit, you’re not a passive host. You designed the romantic/social tagging features.

5. IPC Section 354D — Stalking The “crushing on / crushed on by” fields combined with the email notification system is very problematic. Enabling someone to anonymously tag another person and then notify them about it could constitute facilitation of stalking.

Also, it was simply uncool.

you are still being disingenuous. We live in a society, the college as a whole is a society of various people. Your site was hurting some people's sentiments and that's enough reason to take it down. I can admit it was maybe cool, but try to do cool things which do good to people, not harm. and be a little more humble.