UBC Confessions is intended to be an anonymous and lighthearted outlet for students to share personal stories which took place on campus. However, while the majority of the content is relatively innocent, some confessions that were posted in October worried many students.
Two particular posts were taken down after they made students feel uncomfortable — one by a student who was told to take Plan B by another student, and the other by an intimidated student afraid to go to class because of their professor’s actions towards them.
The Ubyssey reached out to UBC Confessions, which is run by upper-year undergraduates, for their publishing policy and what their stance is on reaching out to students who appear to be in distress.
“Not all confessions get posted,” the UBC Confessions administrators said in a written statement. “One of the admins had recommended that we filter out confessions that were not up to par by using a rating system, which is what we currently use.”
The administrators try to avoid posting content such as confessions which feature the names of people not in the public eye, assault, reposted topics, questions about opinions on classes and confessions that “may be overly offensive to a huge number of people.”
“The ones that do commonly get posted and get the best feedback are the hilarious and creative ones that are also related to UBC and/or student life,” they wrote. “We also favour confessions that we think would incite meaningful discussion among the UBC community.”
In explanation of the two posts in question and why they passed the content guidelines of the page, they stated that they thought it was important to get the word out about the cruelty some students face.
“We had posted them because we felt that perhaps the UBC community should be aware that this was happening on campus,” the UBC Confessions administrators wrote. “But we had received quite a few complaints and concerns following these submissions to take them down, which we ended up doing.”
UBC Confessions does keep the submitted confessions anonymous. However, they are aware and conscious of the troubling confessions that sometimes appear.
“We decided to provide the choice of using an anonymous submission form because we respect anonymity and want to encourage people to share thoughts that they normally wouldn’t want to share if they were identifiable,” they wrote. “This can be a double-edged sword, as sometimes we get really interesting submissions that you wouldn’t normally get from direct messages, but at the same time, we get a lot of low-effort or truly worrying confessions.”
These posts have clearly made an impact on students feeling uncomfortable online. Ingrid Söchting, a UBC clinical psychology professor and the director of the UBC Psychology Clinic, noted that an online forum is not the best approach for seeking help or guidance for issues.
“As a psychologist, I am concerned about the UBC Confessions initiative,” said Söchting. “It leaves readers wondering if the person needs professional support but cannot access, is looking for an answer or advice but not getting it, or possibly just finding it interesting to post something shocking which may be of questionable veracity. The problem with the latter is that people may believe certain problems are happening more often than may be the case.”
For students who need to talk to someone, Söchting suggests reaching out for personal help.
“If someone at UBC has a real concern about their safety and well-being, they ought to be encouraged to contact the appropriate UBC services for support and guidance instead of framing it as an ‘anonymous confession,’” said Söchting.