Confession Twitter accounts drawing ire

A new trend on Twitter left some reeling in its wake. A recent batch of accounts on the social networking site detailing secret crushes, confessions and thoughts posted anonymously have drawn criticism for attacking CFHS students.

A popular Twitter account, Cedar Falls Crushes (@CedarFallsCrush) was recently suspended due to user reports. The account started out as an outlet for UNI students to anonymously announce romantic attractions to the world and hopefully their crush, but was soon overruled by CFHS students posting their own secret thoughts.

Frustrations from college students soon emerged after CFHS students started sending their own crushes into the site.

More recently, an account with a similar name, Cedar Falls Crush (@cedarfallsCFC) emerged from the ashes of @CedarFallsCrush, this time focusing solely on CFHS students. The account gained almost 250 followers after its creation nine hours earlier.

The anonymous nature of the account comes from the unidentified admin posting direct messages that they receive, leaving out the identity of the sender.

Harmless? Maybe, maybe not. @CedarFallsCrush was known for inserting offensive confessions and opinions between updates calling students names.

The anonymity of the accounts and users submitting messages could easily morph into online harrassment and cyberbulling with a few keystrokes.

The namelessness and eager-to-please nature of the accounts provides an outlet for cyberbullies to attack without a thought, caution thrown to the wind.

Confession-style Facebook pages started popping up locally in the spring of 2013 and lost steam throughout the summer, only to come back at the start of the school year at full force.

Run by UNI students, multiple pages like Cedar Falls Crushes, Confessions of A UNI Student, University of Northern Iowa Secret Admirers and UNI Missed Connections showed up in students’ newsfeeds, broadcasting nearly hundreds of “secret crushes” every day.

Universities across the nation have been dealing with the ramifications of the accounts, often drastically. After complaints of cruel comments reported to the administration, Loras College of Dubuque had its Facebook confessions page shut down in less than 24 hours.