Have You Confessed Yet?

NTU Confessions has given students much to talk about in recent weeks. Still, many question its credibility and usefulness.

By Isaac Tan, News Editor

Secrets spilled, identities preserved.

It’s been three weeks since the birth of NTU Confessions, but contributions are still streaming in. From stories of promiscuity to heartfelt secrets, anonymous contributions are keeping readers well entertained.

The Facebook page garnered more than 3,500 followers within the first three days and has a following of over 10,000 to date.

The anonymity allows users to share anything, subject to the page administrators’ approval. One post detailed how an individual joined a cheerleading squad to meet “pretty and sexy girls” and to be able to “touch them”.

Another was a brazen confession that the individual worked as an escort last year.

This revealed a previously unknown side of NTU and provided a refreshing perspective for students here, said Nicholas Ng, 22, a second-year student from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

“NTU Confessions is like an online Speakers’ Corner. You can use the site to talk about school issues or even national issues like the recent White Paper debate,” he said.

“As long as there are no insensitive topics like racial discrimination, this page can help students speak up more.”

Associate Professor Cherian George from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information agreed the site can contribute to healthy discussion.

“With this site, it ‘s like crowdsourcing peer advice. You get more diverse views, which means a higher chance of receiving good advice,” he said.

“Of course, you will also encounter wacko views, so, like everything on the Internet, a lot depends on your powers of discernment,” said Assoc Prof George, who is also a member of the Media Literacy Council.

Assoc Prof George warns that the site can potentially cause more problems to individuals “in vindictive and self-destructive ways”.

Many different types of posts are approved on the site in order for the platform to serve its purpose of sharing stories. This includes ‘troll’ posts — where users masquerade as other users and post confessions that may be untrue or exaggerated.

“When this happens, and I say ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, I hope friends will step in and save their peers from themselves, and if necessary seek professional help from counsellors,” he said.

Then, there is also the problem of content curation.

The site was originally set up in time for Valentine’s Day and anonymity was intended to help people build up the courage to confess their feelings for others.

But it also has resulted in abuse of the site.

The page’s founders, NUS Computer Science students who go by the alias Brian and Richard, say that self-regulation is necessary.

If every submission were automatically posted without moderation, there would be the serious problem of offensive posts flooding the page.

“Without proper identification, we need to be socially responsible and remove inappropriate entries,” said Brian.

Unfortunately, many students question the credibility of the posts.

Ng Boon Kiat, 24, stopped following the site because he felt that many of the posts were going overboard and most were fake.

“Anyone can post and there’s no way to ensure credibility,” said the third-year student from the School of Biological Sciences.

“It’s just a platform for people to talk nonsense and gain attention.” 

But while many may dismiss the site’s content, some agree with the administrators that the site is useful for making lost-and-found announcements and serves as a public forum to discuss sensitive issues such as the treatment of NTU’s foreign students.

“Ultimately, we hope this will remain a healthy and open confession page,” said Brian.

However, they also warned others that it is not easy.

Richard said: “My advice to those forming spaces for discussion online, will be to constantly moderate the content.

“A disclaimer may help but at the end of the day, do moderate with social responsibility in mind.”

Additional reporting by Yebeen Ashley Kim