It doesn't matter what your intention was, the point was that that was what it did. You didn't think hard enough about how people would use it given the (lack of) constraints and moderation you designed it with and you didn't take responsibility / accountability for what you had facilitated.

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.

Why is your intention relevant here? Sure: in the US if you kill somebody accidentally then you'll be convicted of manslaughter instead of murder. In your situation, intention is relevant to whether the school decides to throw you out or just discipline you in some way.

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 do not believe someones style of speaking should have an effect on your interpretation of their words.

It has an effect on interpretation of your character. That's unavoidable. Welcome to the real world, I guess.