Got kicked out of uni and had the cops called for a social media website I made
monyatwu.com
monyatwu.com
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile.
Oh, good, they made a harassment factory.
Young people doing (sometimes questionable) experiments.
The fact that the default response to this is "omg" and "this guy deserves to be in prison" is an indication of the dark times we're headed towards. A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm, is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm. And the norms are changing.
I am pretty pro-privacy. And yes, I find it to be fairly thoughtless, but that's no reason for coercive intimidation. The fact that this was the reaction to someone doing an experiment speaks poorly about the society it took place in, and explains why there haven't been any major breakthroughs - in consumer tech, science or the arts – from within that country.
More generally, HN's reaction is disappointing. This is a very hacker thing to do. Hackers have always been people out at the edge doing things that get them into trouble. The fact that most people on HN want to crush that rebelliousness – that hacker spirit – is sad to me.
I think there's a dark undercurrent in global culture, where people would rather live in a world where they're poor but able to control others as opposed to one where they're wealthy but unable to exert control over others.
Yeah, Facebook started in college, but it didn't start with scraped data and auto-generated profiles.
So, it all checks out.
He had several rounds of warnings before things escalated (not counting the local bully).
Elite schools are full of dumb people. Being good at math doesn't automatically give you emotional intelligence.
> that is smart enough to make a social media app
What, like it's hard? I could've sworn making a Twitter clone was in plenty of "Programming for Dummies" books during the 2010s - and they didn't even have access to LLMs!
The author's response was the main problem, showing a complete lack of character or ethical concern. There is a world of difference between being a hacker with a sense of rebelliousness and a jerk who thinks there should be zero consequences to their actions.
Given the external consequences of certain actions, for all intents and purposes that "world of difference" may exist only inside their skull.
I don't think many here would disagree with you.
> Because it still has a reasonably positive reputation overall and it's affecting billions of people.
I'm gonna disagree with you. Maybe it's because I live in the Bay Area so the culture is affected by the proximity of tech companies. But my family in the middle of the country mostly seem to be on the same page, so I don't know how you explain that. It may be that I'm drawn to people who care about these topics and some degree of sameness is expected within family dynamics resulting from the parents' values raising us. Whatever.
I think a good portion of society considers FB a garbage product but don't know of an alternative and just accept it for what it is. I think a smaller portion of society recognizes that they are amoral and terrible for society. How many countries have now discussed legislation to limit kids accessing social media (whether you agree or disagree)? That didn't spring out of nowhere fully formed. Years of criticism got us there.
I can explain that. 100% of Americans add up to roughly 5% of the worlds population. As such, there are billions of non American users with very different viewpoints and opinions.
yes. correct.
> Because it still has a reasonably positive reputation overall and it's affecting billions of people.
does it? its like the power company -- you just kinda have to use it, or else you just have ot go without.
I got into trouble in college which nearly became a police matter simply for scraping emails. I didn’t even store the data. I was just testing a tool that I had created and actually found a data bug in the college’s IT system where it gave me access to all the emails instead of access to only the group that I was supposed to be part of.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I self reported (actually I reported the bug to IT thinking I would be rewarded, lol) it would have become a police matter. Because I self reported before they reached out to me the Dean and college President let it remain a code of conduct violation.
I printed it out so I could paste it on my toddler thrashing machine :)
Straw man fallacy. Literally nobody here has said he deserves to be in prison.
> This is a very hacker thing to do. Hackers have always been people out at the edge doing things that get them into trouble.
It saddens me that you don't recognize a difference between "thing that gets you in trouble" and "thing that harms others". Getting in trouble is not the problem here.
I agree-ish with everything generally except this. I don't think this is a global thing at all. I think this is at best a subset of people in mostly western nations.
That said, I no fan of the author or his actions (which paint him like a real jerk). The facts don't really support the benefit of the doubt you're giving him here.
> This is how Facebook started.
And along with it, commercial mass surveillance, monetized addiction, and destruction of free societies. Oh, and their decision enabled the Rohingya genocide too.
> A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm, is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm
Excusing a harassment platform or non-consensual female rating site for university students as social tolerance is gross.
> And the norms are changing.
Oh sure. The tech billionaires' wet dream are coming true at the expense of everyone subject to their whims.
> The fact that this was the reaction to someone doing an experiment speaks poorly about the society it took place in
Calling these acts as mere "experiments" tells us what you think about the suffering of others.
> explains why there haven't been any major breakthroughs - in consumer tech, science or the arts – from within that country.
What an arrogant and ridiculous take, but sadly, I recognize this line of reasoning. You think there are legionnaires of the Antichrist busy at HN trying to halt technological progress!
> that hacker spirit
So let's screw over a bunch of kids for "rebellion," that's the "hacker spirit" now?
> I think there's a dark undercurrent in global culture, where people would rather live in a world where they're poor but able to control others as opposed to one where they're wealthy but unable to exert control over others.
Most people are watching the ultra‑wealthy get richer while losing control over their own lives.
This 1984-style rhetoric wrapped in emotional manipulation makes me sick.
And also I think people are really really overlooking the 'cool' part of the website, which i thought would be the real discussion at hacker news, like all the design choices i made, the virality, everything, like that was really fucking cool i think...
anyways, thanks for being rational man...
[0] btw i just think in general people should grow a thicker skin.im not trying to be insensitive, but it'll just be better for them if they do, like people have said a lot of shit about be, but how can you let randos on the internet ruin your mood man. go live your dreams out.
IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN UP THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T CREATE THEIR PROFILES, YOU DID. It doesn't matter if you were moderating anything, nobody involved gave their consent. You forced them into that position.
>And also I think people are really really overlooking the 'cool' part of the website, which i thought would be the real discussion at hacker news, like all the design choices i made, the virality, everything, like that was really fucking cool i think...
At no point in your linked post do you stop and highlight those things. There's no discussion of the technical aspect, how you streamlined your code, prepared to scale, what makes your code special or unique, what about the UI/UX might be unique or groundbreaking, what's running on the backend, nothing.
No, your entire post was about how you refuse to see how what you did is wrong while you complain about the reactions that everyone else had. You failed to talk about anything else but your ego and your hubris, how you would rather tell someone, "bitch come suck my dick," instead of trying to have a constructive conversation with them, and now you're mad that that's all that we can see?
Good god, child.
Edit: And for the record, it wasn't even natural virality, it was forced. People only visited your page because you forced their profiles to be on there and then told them what you did. For something to be viral, people have to want to go their and use it on their own. I am not shocked at all that you cannot see this.
You built a car wreck. Something so terrible that people had no choice but to look.
Obviously, fucking obviously, if you make profiles about people without their consent then they will be drawn to see what is going on. You can achieve the same thing by making a website where you post everyone's home addresses. Don't get any ideas.
None of this was impressive, at least not from a conceptual view.
That should have been the first clue that this was a bad idea. Nevertheless, the author pressed on with the bad ideas.
They even mention how they watched "The Social Network", a biopic about a very damaged narcissist who is oblivious and/or indifferent to how he hurts people. And the author sees this as something to repeat! It'
> A society unable to tolerate deviance from the norm
A metric "deviates from the norm". The phrase you're looking for is "violation of norms". [0]
> is a society that will fail to adapt to inevitable changes to the norm. And the norms are changing.
They don't seem to be. There seems to be consensus in the comments that the author's behavior was distasteful and violated norms.
Unfortunately, you can't explain away literally anything anybody does wrong simply by claiming they were only "deviating from the norm", and that should be accepted no matter what, for the sake of building adaptivity. A society which accepts anything, including hurting innocent kids, is a society which will quickly collapse.
0 – https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/norm-vi...
If you want to get anywhere, it’s only going to happen by making deals with others.
For this, you need to be kind and caring. You need to negotiate with people and make everyone feel good, like they’re getting a good deal, not your response: “bitch come suck my dick” which by the way is sexual harassment.
You had one opportunity to remove the account of the guy who complained and issue an apology, and you failed. If you had just done this, your site would still be up and viral.
At any point in your negotiations with the Dean you could have offered to work with him to incorporate his feedback and reinforced how the platform was going viral and that it was going to be good for publicity because of its parallels to Facebook. You needed to identify his core concern (perhaps control) and resolve it mutually (make him an admin account or something). That’s what being a leader is about, not being an egotistic maniac.
Yup. Giving users the ability to hide content on their own pages would have been a good start. (Or at least flagging it for manual review.)
That said, there are always idiots you have to ignore. Learning how to balance responsiveness is a real life skill. (As is not giving in to base instincts by insulting those potential idiots.)
btw, in life, normally, I think I'm really nice to everyone around me...
>"You had one opportunity to remove the account of the guy who complained and issue an apology, and you failed."
I did take his profile down btw (not much was even written there). He was telling me to take the site down, and being really really rude to me. If he would have asked me nicely, i wouldnt even have said anything to him (a few other ppl had aksed nicely, and i had just taken their profiles down). He tried to be threatening, and saying shit like "How are you not going to take it down after I have told you to!" and then after that, he told me he was going to drag me out of my hostel room and beat me up in the morning.
like obv, if someone is being this rude to me, all i can do is tell him to come suck my dick, why would i be nice to him?
>"At any point in your negotiations with the Dean"
That is exactly what I tried to do. when I went in, I tried to talk to him, explain my side, listen to him, but he was not giving me a chance to speak at all. just freaking out, just saying take the site down. there was no negotiation at all. he literally jsut said 'take it down' no matter what I tried to tell him. what else could I have done at this point
You'll eventually learn this, kid. Or become the Unibomber. Or just a sad, angry online troll.
Childhood, at least IME, does a bad job of preparing people for this: fault and blame rarely matter in real interactions. When no teacher is around to play judge, all that matters is that you get a favorable outcome. That's something you need to figure out, usually in the heat of the moment, how to get. It takes active effort to understand the other side.
So when did the clickbait title apply? The author is honestly, from this article, quite a horrible person.
The universities reaction was over the top.
The author also needs to improve their grammar. The occasional capitalisation is diabolical. Either do, or don't, and at least if you don't it's obvious you're a child.
* Either do, or don’t, and at least if you don’t, it’s obvious you’re a child.
However, copying people's personal info and then making it available without them having any say is abusive. Letting anyone then comment on anyone's profile is a recipe for further abuse. Not taking down a profile when someone is getting abuse because of it is not surprisingly antagonistic and abusive.
You may not be a horrible person, but what you've done is horrible and abusive. I think it's absolutely correct that the police were involved as what you did is not acceptable at all.
I hope you learn from this to have a bit of respect for other people.
Very little mention of the fact that this project is extremely ho hum from a technical perspective and in terms of creativity.
This is maybe 2 steps up from a Hello World example app. It could have mostly been generated by Rails scaffolding script 15 years ago, not even mentioning AI could crap this out in 20 minutes. Most frameworks have build-a-twitter-clone docs that are actually more complex than this.
And the idea of people having profiles with the ability to comment on them is pretty much feature zero on every social media app ever. I remember thinking this was cutting edge stuff 20 years ago on Xanga.
Cool toy project I guess (morals aside) but not quite the proof of 200 IQ this guy seems to think it is.
I don't know much about India, but if you're going to go that route, it better be as easy to make it by there as a uni drop-out as it is in the US.
> I don't know much about India, but if you're going to go that route, it better be as easy to make it by there as a uni drop-out as it is in the US
It's affluenza.
His dad's a Colonel in the Indian Army and a senior bureaucrat who worked on infrastructure and civilian-military airport development ($$$).
Worst case this kid lays low for a couple months, gets admitted into a private university in India thanks to daddy, and his dad will use his network to get him a job and start his career.
That said, given the way he wrote the article, the comments he made on HN, and the kinds of comments I've seen users make on iitsocial (some homophobic and sexual harassment posts targeting students who happened to be lower caste) I could see someone getting pissed enough to file an FIR on him under IPC 354 (non-bailable), 504, 505, and 509 as well as the SC/ST Act to make an example out of him.
Even if he is found not guilty, getting an FIR means you will never get a visa anywhere (because all countries ask about your criminal background) and getting a job would be extremely difficult without family support.
And becuase this would have become a big news story which would have made IITD's admin look bad (rich upper caste son of a Colonel aided and abetted in sexual harassment of OBC woman at IITD) during election season they tried to give him an offramp, which he stupidly ignored.
Edit:
Jesus, he admitted to committing defamation with full cognizance [0] (and it's already been archived [1]).
> "ok so i was just doing marketing, we were uploading rumors and gossip about people"
Yeah, he can't be saved. He can get an FIR filed against him under IPC 499 and can easily be found guilty of defamation under IPC 500 (non-bailable) on top of the other IPCs listed and the SC/ST Act.
[0] - https://monyatwu.com/dailyblog/day29/
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20260406220532/https://monyatwu....
I'm on the fence about this one given the trollish behavior and lack of remorse. I halfway hope you're right and he gets his wings clipped forever. I'm also not especially sympathetic to people who attempt to knowingly capitalize on the unearned status afforded to them by family.
What I mean if one of the students (or moreso their parents) targeted on iitsocial feels vindictive enough and has deep pockets (still fairly common at top IITs) they could easily file an FIR and force IITD admin to respond.
Admin and (though he doesn't realize it) the student both have an incentive to get this resolved quietly and under the table - admin becuase if this somehow blows up they will end up getting severe flak and the student (even though he doesn't realize it) because if this issue blows up he will be made an example by admin to show that they did something.
Also, I do not understand why you are obsessed with caste. I don't even know my own caste. I do not care about it at all, we are all just students at iit delhi, nothing more nothing less.
And also the kind of rumors/gossip we were writing were the fun kind, "he has a crush on the girl with specs from math class", "she really likes eating college maggi" etc
Also, you have a completely wrong read of me. im not some entitled rich kid, im just a kid who works really hard, all day on cool math and building cool stuff, so that i can achieve my dreams.
He found it on a social network.
> I don't even know my own caste. I do not care about it at all
That's a nice luxury to have.
> And also the kind of rumors/gossip we were writing were the fun kind, "he has a crush on the girl with specs from math class", "she really likes eating college maggi" etc
People can be monsters, welcome to life.
> 1whizkid1 18 hours ago
How is some people writing bad things about some students a value reason to make me take my website down? like iit should honestly have been proud of me for building something cool, which over 80% of their uni is using. instead of threatening to kick me out...
Jesus, buddy
BC bandh kar. I have relatives who are low level jawans and I and every other Desi knows what you meant.
> And also the kind of rumors/gossip we were writing were the fun kind, "he has a crush on the girl with specs from math class", "she really likes eating college maggi" etc
Doesn't matter. You admitted to committing an IPC 499 and 500 violation. You don't understand the severity of the situation you are in and what a massive offramp IITD's admin gave you.
> Also, I do not understand why you are obsessed with caste. I don't even know my own caste. I do not care about it at all, we are all just students at iit delhi, nothing more nothing less
Not in the eyes of the law. If one of your classmates feels vindictive enough they have such an easy path to file an FIR including a non-bailable IPC on you. Your middle class life will be over - all countries reject visa applicants who faced a police inquiry irrespective of whether you or not were ultimately found innocent or guilty.
> Also, you have a completely wrong read of me. im not some entitled rich kid, im just a kid who works really hard, all day on cool math and building cool stuff, so that i can achieve my dreams.
Your conduct and manner of speech says otherwise.
The fact that you were openly taunting your classmates on IG, your profile picture for your blog is of you urinating on a public wall in a hill station, and that you are doubling down instead of recognizing the severity of your mistakes shows severe immaturity and yes a form of affluenza which is sadly all to common back in India.
You severely messed up by posting on HN - most users are western dweebs, but there are plenty of SV and Indian decisionmakers on here (a number of whom are IITD graduates as well).
You pulled a Streisand effect and whenever you will file for a visa or apply for a job, your conduct on this page along with your blog (which is fully archived btw) will show up during a background check. In India you can at least rely on your family to pull some strings to get you something, but you wasted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to open doors that the IITD moniker opens.
>BC bandh kar. I have relatives who are low level jawans and I and every other Desi knows what you meant.
bro the only time i said in my blog that my dad was in the army is when i was talking about the police call... the guy who called the police on me told me point blank he was doing it to scare me, and it's like man i've been raised in an army household, I am not going to be scared just cos someone mentions the police to me. In the call with the police I had a normal dialogue with him, and the police guy was actually really nice.
also youre really really misinterpreting what "connections" I have, my dads an army officer, not a fucking local thug politician...
btw i just wanna say that you seem to care too much about connections and shit, I dont give a fuck about this at all. cos im going to be the best in the world, and when you're the best in the world, you dont need connections...
and for the rest, i guess we'll see what I can make from the opportunities I have earned. since u have my and my dads linkedin and every other thing about me anyways, try to keep up as you witness greatness.
Also, your posts stand out like, well, an angry little teenager trying to swing at a bunch of adults for treating him like an angry little teenager.
im not angry at all btw, its just fun
So you keep asking what you've done wrong and why people are mad, yet you've learned nothing. The over-inflated ego and hubris you have are astonishing.
Then you can tell them, "Go ahead, confiscate my phone. Proof of your illegal acts have already left the building, and the country."
Like hell it is. I got news for you - every website hurts someone's sentiments. That's no reason to gatekeep.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JuicyCampus
[1]: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/07/yik-yak-re-em...
As for your claims that people like it because lots of people were using it, you are being ignorant. People in the community refresh on sites like this/flock to them because of fear. They are afraid of what people are saying about themselves and their friends.
I guarantee if you actually polled users you'd find the vast vast majority of them would wish the site didn't exist. Usage != Support.
- 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.
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.
If four thousand kids were all laughing at a rumor that you had a small dick, and every girl you were interested in laughed you out the door for the rest of your college career, would you really be like "it's ok, 4k people are having fun"?
I guarantee OP would be the guy calling the site operator and threatening to jump him.
you're writing to a broader audience than you think, and you've already marked yourself as a crybaby richboy d-bag.
maybe start a podcast.
Were there lots of people upset? Or was it a small number of people with power who were upset? Like, I'm not at all surprised by how this played out, but it's not clear that anyone was upset beyond some people who don't take well to criticism.
For example, there are people who watch some sick shit on the internet, that doesn't mean you should serve it up.
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.
They wrote at the bottom:
> I'm going to be THE WHIZ KID BILLIONAIRE OF THIS GENERATION. WITNESS HISTORY.
Hey, wonderful. But the rules apply to us all, your whiz-ness.
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?
OP needs to realize that we are no longer in 2005 when the Facebook was founded. Nor is he in the US. He's in India which has much different laws and culture. And case law and our understanding of the harms of cyber bullying and harassment has drastically evolved since 2005.
OP should also realize that this is at IIT in India. There's already a huge suicide problem amongst students in India due to competition. Adding cyber harassment to that isn't the best idea.
Sounds a little bit like that.
> I had scraped data for all students at IIT Delhi, and made a profile for all of them.
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile. Each profile also had 4 fields, where you could tag anyone, in the "has dated", "crushing on", "crushed on by" or "haters" category.
I am surprised that OP, having seen that movie and quoting lines from it during his meeting with the administration, didn't see this coming.
> also at one point i literally said the social network dialogue, " I feel like i deserve some recognition from you guys"
I don't understand what you mean. The blog is very clear about that being the problem.
The blog is also very clear that the author, personally, does not understand why this is a problem.
The thing I saw was that, they mentioned investor/startup multiple times. I feel like this is their way of getting attention (All PR is good PR)
There could've been better ways to handle it and I feel like there was no deeper reflection. One of the things I wish to do after something is to learn from that. I am unable to find that realization sadly :-(
Currently in High school, so maybe my expectations were a bit higher of University but I expected better from IIT-Delhi Student/Staff (Both)
OP I hope that you can reflect on these things. There are some good things to learn which you are dismissing here, Have a nice day.
Really sounds like an arrogant rich kid who has had a lifetime of getting whatever he wants.
This sentence is missing capitalization.
> For egs
Egs is not a word. I assume you mean example? Or if you want to abbreviate it, use "e.g.".
> Back to the story, at 1 am, I launched the site, and just told 4 of my friends. that's it.
That's not how you're supposed to use commas. First one should probably be a period or semicolon. Second one is unnecessary. Third one is defensible, but you're connecting two independent clauses; I think it's better as two sentences. Failing that it's better without the comma.
> lmao as you can see
I wouldn't include "lmao" in any serious piece of writing attached to my professional identity.
> I told them, "no i wont",
This is missing an apostrophe and capitalization.
The list goes on, and on, and on, and on.
Stylistic concerns aside, this reads like you're telling a story to a friend. It's very 'stream of thought'. You don't give much commentary. You don't reflect on what you or others did right or wrong. You don't seem to have actually learned anything from this experience. Better writing would include reflection and show that you have put some actual thought into this incident beyond knee-jerking 'I did nothing wrong I shouldn't have been punished this isn't fair'.
And now ironically, you responding in this way, missing my key point, and trying to argue something else actually reinforces it.
That’s not the right way to do it, just like Facebook‘s shadow profiles.
You want to use my data, you ask first.
What you mean are spammers who scrap web pages for email addresses to sent unwanted mails.
Not only it's too late, but when that guy asks, the reply was "bitch come suck my dick".
Sites like these are only one step up from revenge porn.
Thinking about Anonymous posting about non public figures is perturbing. If the poster can't be made responsible for the post, then the platform and the platform of the platform (and so on) are in line. That is: new website, then the hosting servers (and so on)
When you build social technology, you have a responsibility to put some serious thought into what the social effects are of what you're producing. Every feature will have social and psychological implications for the people using the service. If you don't care about that, you especially shouldn't even be trying to make social-related software.
The kid might have some things to learn, sure, but the adult behavior is what I would call "super immature".
The teenager is on a trajectory to become a very capable person, technologically.
They are also behaving like a sociopath and may well be on a trajectory to cause an awful lot more harm than good in the world.
This event could have been a great teaching moment if it was handled by an adult with the capacity to execute on it.
Everyone sucks here and the future is.worse for.it.
When people say stuff, only other people around them hear, and even then it can be denied. When people write things online, what they write is public for everyone to read, and it's permanent, forever screenshotted and reposted.
But people explicitly asked you to take things down, and you refused from the very start.
Did it ever occur to you that you are the one having a problem? Maybe you have a lack of empathy or sympathy.
Doesn't matter what people wrote about them, the simple fact is that you did that to them with their data. That you can't grasp the concept of crossing private boundaries like that is disturbing. Stop laughing about this and start looking inward.
You should assume that people don’t know you, and they will not give you the benefit of the doubt. So it is in your best interest to make your public image as unimpeachable as possible.
If the person looking at your blog post is a potential employer, they will not spend a long time weighing pros and cons of your employment. They will pass you over and tell you nothing.
Last time someone asked to take down a post, you said "bitch come suck my dick" according to your own blog.
Hurt people hurt people. You sure seem to have bottled up your own pain with anger weakly disguised as eagerness. I hope you eventually realize you cannot gain the love of your father by “success”. It’s not your fault; he is too traumatized. Nobody else needs to suffer (“develop a thick skin” after repeat bullying which you first experienced and then enabled) just because you had to; it won’t fix your pain, it’ll only make it worse.
The admin behaviour is expected in an Indian context, provided you behave the way this guy did. I am not saying it's good to snatch the guys phone, but it's expected.
Let me explain the core issue here.
The issue is that if the platform ever devolves into something that can be construed as cyberbullying, then the admin is suddenly in trouble.
In the Indian context, elite public colleges like IITD have some students from quite poor non urban backgrounds, These colleges are cheap, have a strict entrance exam (JEE) and there's no money requirement so you have people from all financial strata. As such, the social dynamic is that the parents "entrust" the college with "taking care" of their kid. Especially in first generation educated. In contrast, in private colleges with homogenous, richer families the social dynamic puts more responsibility on the student. The age of 18 is completely irrelevant in this dynamic.
The point is, the admin in this college is also somewhat of a caretaker of the students. And will face social liability for cyberbullying "happening under their nose". This is true even if it happens on reddit by the way (and the bully is in the same college). Essentially, if there is a way for the dean to intervene and he doesn't, he has failed in his job as a caretaker. That's the dynamic here. Obviously he has deniability if some random american bullies a IITD kid on say HN. But if a IITD kid bullies a IITD kid on any social platform they will come down on it heavily.
Thus, the platform was never going to work and it's problematic before the law even comes into play. Talking about "tell me what rule I broke" without considering the above social dynamics is fairly immature. If they had done the same thing at say an Ashoka University (expensive private college) then they would have faced none of these issues by contrast. If I'm allowed a swipe at the author, this situation is entirely expected given their privileged background.
Anyway...
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile
Jesus christ. You built a platform specifically designed for targeted abuse. I know that you're still young, but one day when you're older I hope you come to realize that a platform for spreadings rumors about others is not an ok thing to want to build. You don't have the moral high-ground here. The only thing you accomplished was being a creep.
This whole blog post shows an extreme level of immaturity that I really do hope you grow out of. Literally every line is absolute cringe.
> this is that story. its really really fucking crazy.
The craziest thing to me about this story is that everything in the story makes you look bad and yet you chose to post it anyway.
You either:
A) never realized that you were building a harassment platform despite being told this multiple times, which demonstrates a complete lack of awareness
or
B) thought it would be a good idea to build a harassment platform, which demonstrates a complete lack of empathy
I get it he was copying The Social Network, but just because it's been done before doesn't make it better now.
Tea is still available on the app store, which is a far more targeted harassment and slander app, than this one that was clearly more of a 4chan style "for the lulz" that no one would take seriously.
False dichotomy fallacy. Also fallacy of emotive language. That is a deflection, not a rebuttal.
> Tea is still available on the app store
Whataboutism. Fallacy of relative privation. That is a deflection, not a rebuttal.
Since we're talking about worlds we'd like to live in, I'd like to live in a world where people believe that it's bad to think harassment platforms are ok/cool/fun.
Though it's admittedly possible they could have eventually gotten the website taken down through less thuggish means.
Calling this student's project a "harassment platform" is misleading, emotive language.
Also using emotive language isn't a fallacy, get out of here with that. Using the phrase "authoritarian nightmare" does not replace logic with emotion like an actual fallacy would.
For the “immature and infantile” part, i disagree with you on it. I do not believe someones style of speaking should have an effect on your interpretation of their words. Youre just doing yourself a disservice
It has an effect on interpretation of your character. That's unavoidable. Welcome to the real world, I guess.
Your response to this seems to be: "People need to be more thick-skinned, I would take it down if they asked & it's unfair that they escalated to the dean." as if that somehow invalidates the criticism you're receiving. It doesn't. The fact that you don't really own up to that shows a lack of emotional maturity which makes it hard for people to feel sympathy for you. Until you actually understand why people had problems with what you made, you won't get a lot of sympathy for how you were treated either.
It's like those videos where some clueless racist spouting off garbage on the subway eventually gets punched by someone else. Yes, the assault is definitely "more" wrong. But you won't find a lot of people feeling sorry for the racist.
But intention is irrelevant when understanding what harms the site will cause. Plenty of sites have been created for noble purposes, and achieved great things, and yet still ended up driving some users to suicide. "Oops, I didn't expect that to happen" might make someone punish you less, but it's not going to change what was built or what effects it had on people.
I mean, at that age I did some stupid shit too and thought it was cool. I'd even get defensive and double down when someone challenged me by saying I had fucked up and hurt people. Hopefully you're still just in that defensive stage and you'll be able to see things more clearly when you get some distance from it.
Hint: if this continued to be popular, there is no way you could control it. (Never mind that you clearly had little interest in controlling it thus far; you've basically stated that your opinions on what is serious vs trivial harassment are all that matter, and when you could get around to deleting things is soon enough.) You would be directly responsible for trashing the school's social environment and harming a lot of people -- many of whom aren't male and/or whose daddy and mommy are not in the military. You don't get to decide who is and isn't vulnerable.
Please learn something about human nature and what people do when given the power over people they feel rejected by or superior to. Especially when the attacks are anonymous.
> I had scraped data for all students at IIT Delhi, and made a profile for all of them.
> anyone could make an anonymous account, and then comment anything on anyone's profile. Each profile also had 4 fields, where you could tag anyone, in the "has dated", "crushing on", "crushed on by" or "haters" category.
> he told me, take the site down or you WILL face DISCO, so again I was like sure, I dont mind it (I was just gettting reminded of Social Network lmao)
> also at one point i literally said the social network dialogue, " I feel like i deserve some recognition from you guys"
The school will hate you no matter what. But this project doesn't appeal to VCs because social networking isn't trendy anymore.
Try doing something fresh with AI.
Example: the founder of Cluely got expelled from Columbia for creating an AI to cheat at LeetCode-style interviews.
He also spends his time posting what some call unprofessional engagement bait on social media. However, he just had a $15 million Series A.
But yes, i appreciate your comment, and i 100% plan to do more cool and serious things in the future.
Your site’s really cool btw
This is a johnny-come-lately who is just acting out a script that VCs are already sick of.
Has there been a point when you paused and put serious, private deliberation into the question, "am I wrong?" Like several consecutive minutes, at least? It's ok to ask that question. You're even allowed to do it in the privacy of your own thoughts, where nobody else can judge you.
0 – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/oppositional-...
1 – https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-...
Look at their posts in this thread. They're doubling down _hard_.
1 Proven -247
2 VentureHawk -89
3 adamyormark -50
4 oldpersonintx2 -45
5 sevenstar -35
Yes, the admin didn't handle it well, but the writing style and general tone of this post/incident is incredibly off-putting. All while talking about future "investors" and how many great ideas he has. You created a clone of hot-or-not (or whatever Zuck called his site) and you think you're the next coming? Get real. There was nothing innovative here at all, it might be one thing if it was innovative while being scummy but it's just scummy and a tired copy.
What the author did wrong was mishandling the negative response. If he had been open to the feedback and worked on a plan to address the concerns, the site might have stayed up. Hopefully this is a learning opportunity, as he clearly needs it.
Per the thread, it’s possible this problem could’ve been solved by burying the site in affiliate links…
How is military mommy and daddy keeping you from ending up in a Delhi landfill in eight to twelve pieces after being disrespectful to the wrong person?
They better try for a smarter son quickly, because you are not getting very old in the place you’re living, pissing people off like that.
Because his dad is a Colonel and a Senior Bureaucrat in the MoD who was in charge of civilian-military airport construction and attended the NDA back in the day.
That's the kind of background that means they know who to call. The issue is IITD has plenty of students from similar backgrounds (some of whom appeared to appear to have been targeted on iitsocial) who if they wanted to could also call in favors if they felt vindictive enough.
Kids from jawan and shaheed families don't act like this. And this only makes this Mony bloke even more distasteful.
It’s interesting to see how big the difference in culture is sometimes based on what kind of values you get taught in your military career and at home.
My dad was in the military as well, but he would have whooped my ass in front of the whole school and had me personally knock on every dorm room to ask for forgiveness if I had behaved like that instead of doubling down over the phone.
the guy basically told me after i agreed on taking his post down, that take the site down, "how can you not take it down when im telling you to",and then said he'd beat me up in the morning.
so i just meant, man both my parents are in the army, I'm not gonna be threatened by some nerd at IIT Delhi, not in the sense that my parents would do anything, just that I'm personally stronger than that.
Respectfully, I think all of your actions here contradict that claim. It's easy for a person to mistake having a temper with strength. It doesn't take strength to get pissed off and lash out at someone who is angry at you. That's something most people naturally want to do, and it's something which we work hard to teach kids to resist. It takes a lot of strength to try to put aside your immediate, gut reaction and attempt to deescalate. Your statements elsewhere in this comment section and in the blog post give the impression of a person who feels entitled and is angrily rejecting taking responsibility for the negative consequences of their actions.
> The moment I entered the room, the Dean just started shouting at me.
> while we were leaving, the Security Officer saw my phone was recording. and this is where all hell broke loose.
> one of the security guys just held me. and started being rough with me. like pushing me around and shit.
> Everyone was shouting at me, i felt like I was being harrassed at this point, and honestly, it's a little embarissing, but i just got overwhelmed. like with all this shit. I started crying, literally balling my eyes out.
> Then the dean called me to his office. To his credit, like i guess seeing me cry and be so sad, the dean became really really nice.
> to the dean's credit, like half an hour later, he literally came to my room, to check up on me and that i was good. like that's really nice of him, he didnt have to do that.
Textbook case of abuse. Scream at a child who's smaller than you, don't let him get a word in edgeways, physically assault him when he attempts to hold you accountable, then when he finally crumbles, act all sweet and sugary like you've done him a favour.
The dean is the real asshole in this story. It's psychopathic abusers like that who need to be removed from educational institutions. Places where they can wield their power like a weapon, abusing it against people who they know can't fight back and give them what they really deserve.
> ok so i was just doing marketing, we were uploading rumors and gossip about people.
Wow. Not at all sympathetic to this attitude.
> At this point I was genuinely feeling really fucking cool, cos I was just thinking this would be a really cool story to tell investors when I have a startup. The site was just booming.
I hate what the world has become with adulation of startup culture and influencer chasing. It brings out the worst in people.
That said. He’s a kid. And he showed chutzpah. Certainly nothing horrendous.
The dean and authorities come across as power-hungry numpties. Nobody should be losing their temper. They should be able to cite rules and begin disciplinary proceedings and then negotiate afterwards if they want the site taken down.
...in response to someone politely asking to have his profile removed. Then the school told you to take it down and you refused.
You deserved to get kicked out of school.
Yes, this site would probably have been fine (if distasteful) in the U.S...because the U.S. has a different legal system. This site is not legal under Indian law. Defamation works very differently in India.
You should consider yourself lucky that you're able to write this blogpost instead of finding out what the inside of an Indian prison is like.
I don't think this was a good site, but it's still important to get the details correct.
You keep asking people what you did wrong, but you have refused time and again to even begin to attempt to consider why creating profiles for everyone without their permission is wrong.
HN doesn't care about virality and something being "cool" the way you think they do, especially when all you're doing is copying what a famous CEO did nearly two decades ago, the very CEO that most of HN extremely dislikes now - and you wonder why you're getting the third degree?
Step off the internet for a bit and think about the feedback you're getting. Stop insisting you're awesome and that the project was cool and that we're all wrong, and consider what you're hearing. Your ego is tremendously over-inflated.
If I had been the other half of that conversation and that had been your response to me, right now you would be in the ER recovering from a life-threatening beating.
In India, you would be the one getting arrested.
So… you just blatantly lied in the title? I can’t find any charitable ambiguity to explain the disconnect there other than garden variety lying for clout.
I know you’re young and I did plenty of dumb things and had an inflated ego at that age myself but you want to seriously consider how poorly this story (and the lying) reflects on your character if any potential employers, acquaintances, dates, etc read this.
It brings value to nobody.
The author obviously lack maturity, is cocky and I guess we have every reason to hate him. University (from what he wrote) doesn't look bright either but it's India, it's kind of expected.
This post doesn't reflect well on you, you were disrespectful to every person in the story. You really need to grow up, and you could've handled this way better.
You could have, for example, asked exactly what their concerns were, and proposed ways to address them.
Your site looks very amateur, but from your description, it doesn't sound like you are doing anything clearly forbidden by law.
>someone had written a comment about S which he did not like.
Couldn't this also be done in the reddit? Then is the lack of moderation and language filters the problem?
>Another cool thing was that whenever someone commented on your profile or tagged you, I'd send you an email on your official iitd email.
That’s quite the opposite of respect. More like spam.
Cursing at people, taking hidden photos, posting them publicly laughing at the situation, mocking employees and the police, is the opposite of being respectful.
It's some vindication, but it's also just sad.
This is Mark Zuckerberg posting this, check.
Yeah, something tells me that these studies aren't going to move the needle on swearing and professionalism.
Good luck dealing with these small minded administrators.
Also the guy with a clipboard is only showing those notes to a couple people at a time after they journey to his location, which makes a pretty big difference for the amount of disruption. There's no magical thinking about the internet being special. The social norms are different because the situation is so different.
>So i was like chill out bro, ill just delete the video, but the dean said, "no confiscate his phone". so one of the guards just snatched the phone from my hand the dean said wipe everything, and dont give him his phone back. I was like wtf is happening? bro I have my private photos on there dont do this. like you cannot do this. I tried reaching for my phone but one of the security guys just held me. and started being rough with me. like pushing me around and shit.
> I knew the police can't really tell me to do anyhting, and my parents are in the army too so intimidation obv wont work.
So what are you complaining about?
The fact that a person is a student at the school can be very sensitive information. The classic example is someone who leaves an abusive spouse/family and does not want to be found. Now their name and picture is out there, and their timetable and therefore whereabouts could be partially inferred from the school calendar by someone who knows their interests.
But they were already in the directory? That's much more "out there" than the gossip site.
I'm really skeptical of this line of logic. It feels like motivated reasoning based on not liking the site, because a privacy issue like that is easier to attack (if it's real). I think the meaningful criticisms are based on the actual functionality, the commenting.
Leaking PII like this would be illegal in Canada for example.
Those restrictions are presumably not going to permit a user script that adds a "harass this student" button to the directory page, either.
It bothers me that most comments here are high-and-mighty. Did you guys really do nothing you regret when you were younger?
I've seen this (or similar) twice in the comments here now, and I'm just astounded by how bad this take is. It's hacker nature to explore. It's even hacker nature to try to break things to see if they can be broken. But it is not hacker nature to think it's cool to precipitate harm to others. That's just being an asshole.
I wonder if Delhi is the equivalent of a one-party or two-party consent state in the US? If it's one-party then OP recording their conversation wasn't even illegal.
And just like Zucc he is shielded by privilege - his father's a senior bureaucrat in the MoD who attended the NDA.
Additionally, based on the comments on iitsocial, a large number of users were commenting how it was devolving into a doxxing mill.
Doesn't matter, he'll land on his feet given his familial background.
And this is why my parents immigrated to the US in the 1990s and I remain grateful for that.