By Kiara Catanzaro
News Editor
Bonnies Confessions is the up-to-date, hot topic that has most students at St. Bonaventure talking.
The new Twitter account, @BonniesConfess, allows students to send in anonymous posts about everything and anything St. Bonaventure related. The owners of the account, who choose to keep their identities anonymous, provided a link to ask.fm where students can submit their anonymous confessions. As of Thursday morning @BonniesConfess had reached 807 followers.
One of the owners of Bonnies Confessions said other schools have Twitter accounts similar to @BonniesConfess, which is why the students decided to create an account.
“So many other schools have accounts like this,” an owner said. “And think of it this way; students used to write this stuff on desks, bathroom walls. Now it’s on Twitter, but the same thing.”
The only difference between writing on a bathroom wall in comparison to the Internet is that it could potentially ruin someone’s opportunity for a job or internship down the line. Nothing is private on the Internet.
At first, I was skeptical about the account because it seemed like a real-life “Gossip Girl” scenario. “Gossip Girl,” which first aired in 2007, is a show about upper east side Manhattan teenagers who dedicate their lives to an anonymous account, which reports information sent in by classmates.
However, Bonnies Confessions isn’t out to ruin the lives of St. Bonaventure students. The owners of the group tweeted if someone wants a post removed, they can request it to be deleted and they will honor the request.
Despite removing unwanted posts, there are some vindictive accusations posted on the account, which could cause a problem for students regardless if they’re true or not. For example, there was one accusation of rape posted on the Twitter page along with the student’s initials.
I don’t think serious accusations such as rape should be allowed on the account. Students can easily generate assumptions about people when their initials are included in the tweets. It could cause critical consequences for students.
“Negative feedback has been mostly about individual posts. In those cases the posts in question have been deleted,” an owner said.
The account also raises questions about cyber bullying. However, one of the owners of the account said many posts have been deleted or not posted because of the harmful content.
“There have been many tweets/submissions rejected that have been too harsh, hurtful or lewd,” an owner said.
Aside from a few minor, but easily fixed, problems the connection within the campus community won’t be destroyed over an anonymous account. On March 3, the top tweet on Bonnies Confessions read, “True Bonnies don’t hate on other Bonnies,” which has 10 retweets and more than 40 favorites.
That’s the type of content we should encourage on this account.
Despite some of the negative tweets, I think @BonniesConfess has potential. With the positive spirit of the Bona Bubble, I don’t think St. Bonaventure students should worry about bullying taking over the account.
Kiara Catanzaro is the news editor for The Bona Venture. Her email is catanzka12@bonaventure.edu.
