alt Hacker NewsGot kicked out of uni and had the cops called for a social media website I made
Comments
> "the DEAN threatened to kick me out"
So when did the clickbait title apply? The author is honestly, from this article, quite a horrible person.
Look, a piece of valid advice, and let me prefix this with I’ve been in business a long time and I run a big company.
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.
This is really cool. Most people here are whining that you, a college student, aren't acting like an adult. I hope you can look past that; it's supposed to be hacker nature to do stupid stuff like this.
It bothers me that most comments here are high-and-mighty. Did you guys really do nothing you regret when you were younger?
This guy is too cocky for his own good. Still, an interesting case study in how to trip up on your own arrogance and still not learn anything from it.
I don't know how you could write this and possibly think you come across as smart or mature. How you didn't get kicked out immediately is beyond me. These people did not consent to be included in your site; you had no right to air their personal lives because you think it makes you special.
If you're ever going to record an interaction with people who do not want it seen by the masses that they are breaking the law, you need to ensure that you livestream it.
Then you can tell them, "Go ahead, confiscate my phone. Proof of your illegal acts have already left the building, and the country."
Harrassment site.
Sites like these are only one step up from revenge porn.
Prompt: make a viral story about a cartoonishly obnoxious person feeling persecuted for facing any real consequences for their antisocial behavior.
lol this happened at my college (IIT delhi). He's being disengeious in the blog, the reason they made him take the site down is cos people writing some really really bad things about students, and Obv that should not be allowed at a place for higher education. Be more mature.
With the writing being at the level that it is, I struggle to take the claim "I was telling him, sir, give me one actual rule im breaking and i'll take the site down" Seriously. OP obviously didn't clearly understand why people were having a negative reaction to the site; I expect they might not recognize rules or laws even if they were cited.
I suspect if he changed the name to not include the college name, while people would be angry, there wouldn't be a real reason to take it down. The sending emails to the college system is also iffy.
Sorry but the author sounds incredibly annoying.
I know he watched the Social Network before he did this :)
I guess I'm too old for this sh*t, the whole thing just sounds terribly juvenile.
I guess that’s how you get to be in Forbes 30 under 30 right?
Very nice thread by the former CEO of Reddit about online behavior, moderation, etc: https://x.com/yishan/status/1586955288061452289
Per the thread, it’s possible this problem could’ve been solved by burying the site in affiliate links…
I mean, this guy seems absolutely clueless. Anyone with even the slightest social awareness would know this site is going to result in hurting people and people are going to really dislike him for making it... and further his own conduct is super immature (wtf is [0])... He basically made a harassment service, complete with allowing anonymous posting? Definite "FAFO" moment. I don't feel a shred of sympathy for his situation.
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.
https://monyatwu.com/dailyblog/day29/
> ok so i was just doing marketing, we were uploading rumors and gossip about people.
Well Zuckerberg, this is the brainrot staring back at you.
I love how OP directly borrowed the plot of The Social Network by scraping the campus directory for a student rating system. And somehow it's playing out in the exact same way.
> 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"
Preliminary comment on tone and behavior in writing: Everything about the story, from the described details about what allegedly happened to the way those details are communicated, is infantile. That makes it very hard to treat the author as a reliable narrator about specific details.
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
One can hope that time will lead to more maturity than was shown in launching a site like this or acting that way when pressed.
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.
Hahaha, I get 'The Social Network' vibes from this story. You should read his other posts also. Let's just say the guy has more than enough confidence.
Hey 1whizkid1, the Forbes 30 under 30 pipeline is waiting for you.
Hey Mony, I want to follow your blog, please have an RSS feed for it if you can.
When I read things like this I glimplse the enormous cultural gulf between generations. I instictively want to take the side of the underdog in most situations. But in this case, I do not find the protagonist very sympathetic. But clearly, many young people feel otherwise. The world is a-changing.
Indians amuse me. "My parents are in the military, you can do jack shit".
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.
You have to bring it back; it’s your awesome work
Reading this wasn't easy, but let's appreciate the authenticity.
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?
Yikes, I guess American tendency for narcissism, cultural rot, and attention-seeking at all costs has fully permeated the global culture. This brat will probably be successful in life and that’s exactly why everything’s going to shit.
sounds like a strong case of ego
Apparently he got what he deserved, his karma currently is -17 (have never seen a negative karma).
I am 17 from the same country and this is somewhat juvenile, this isn't an age problem for-the-most-part.
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.
The implementation of the idea looks more like a kiwifarm egg than a facebook egg.
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)
This is the most self indulgent story I've ever read.
It brings value to nobody.
What the fuck is this ? Is this even real ?
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.
> 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.
This is Mark Zuckerberg posting this, check.
Quite the personality this kid, I must say.
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.
Congratulations on the successful launch, Mark! (2004)
What an asshole.
I ain't reading all that, but do you really think it wise to recreate TheFacebook in 2026?
I cannot tell if it's satire. The writing gave me a literal headache.
OP: College is a time to make mistakes, and learn from them. Do you feel you learned from your mistakes? Do you feel there has been any conflict with the people who pointed them out? [0][1]
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-...
> What the site was is 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.
Oh, good, they made a harassment factory.