Felix investigates: the admin that didn’t remain anonymous

Felix has reason to believe that a single student may be behind many of the popular Imperial Facebook pages.

We suspect the individual has now graduated, after completing an undergraduate degree in Aeronautics. Felix has managed to procure email correspondence and personal anecdotes from a number of students, giving us more information on the individual behind many of the popular pages that students are posting to currently, and that were active last year.

The student started at Imperial in 2008, and has been intrinsically linked to the now defunct Tell Someone Something (TSS) page, Humans of Imperial (HoI) and 4th Floor Central Library.

Individual was first linked to the Imperial TSS page after making an admin post during the last RAG Week, asking for sponsorship under the name “TSS Admin” to take part in their annual bungee jump. After approaching the stall and presenting the funds raised through a post on the page, he had to give the committee his full name and CID number.

The same student was also identified as the photographer, and and probably the admin, of Humans of Imperial last year, as he would approach students and staff himself to post their photos on the page. The posts on HoI though are all amicable and friendly, and ownership of the page has since been transferred to a team of five students still at Imperial.

For the TSS page, members of Imperial could anonymously send in messages via a Google form, which were then collated and published. It didn’t take long for the TSS page to come under fire for its content, which ranged from racist and sexist posts to defamatory ones.

These included posts labelling an individual as a “n**r” and “[smelling] awfully bad”, accusing a hall warden of sniffing the underwear of students, and asking a student with a “fugly Indian-Chinese” partner “what’s it like putting a piece of s into your vagina every night”.

Complaints made by students about objectionable content, as well as requests to remove said content, were repeatedly defended under a “freedom of speech” banner. This is in spite of the fact that legally, the admin of a page is responsible for all published content under defamation laws. At this point, the page had amassed just under 3000 likes.

Several people whose full names were published on the page made use of Facebook’s “Report Abuse” system, as well as directly messaging the admin of TSS to remove the posts. These were met with threats and a spike in the targeted bullying messages on both the page and an affiliated Twitter account.

In one instance, when asked by one student to remove defamatory posts towards them, the admin became defensive and threatened to post more. When asked for the name(s) of those posting the abuse, the admin replied: “Don’t bite the hand that feeds, dear lady. Do what you think is right, we know we will.” A post from the admin subsequently appeared on TSS, encouraging those who authored the threats to confront the victim directly.

Following this, they continued to post abusive and upsetting posts concerning that student on a daily basis before the group was shut down.

Hypocritically, while the admin refused to censor offensive remarks against students, comments that questioned or were critical of the page were swiftly moderated. At one point, a student’s complaint regarding an insensitive joke about the missing MH370 flight was removed, but the post containing the joke was allowed to remain. A post with the same MH370 joke is still visible on the 4th Floor Central Library page.

The issue was escalated to ICT, with screenshots of their conversation with the admin included in the complaint. However, ICT dismissed the complaint and said there was nothing they could do, as Facebook pages were beyond their control.

RAG released details of the admin to Imperial College Union to aid with their investigation into abusive Facebook pages. The individual was reported to the College Tutors, a group of department-independent senior pastoral advisers, in a series of emails sent from the Union. No formal action was taken against him, however meetings were held between College Tutors, the Union and students affected by the cyber-bullying posts on the page.

While College and the Union were collating evidence against the admin responsible, a number of the more offensive posts and comments started to disappear from the TSS page. The page admin then published an open letter, seemingly speaking out against bullying. However, students believed this was an attempt by the page owner to whitewash their actions.

Despite the Union advising against it, following an article by The Tab Imperial during the course of the investigation, the Imperial TSS page was removed from Facebook, leading to the investigation being suspended indefinitely. The Tab were unaware of the progress of the Union’s investigation, with the reporter in question later saying that they were not aware that the College had been given a name from the Union.

All three pages cited here (Imperial TSS, 4th Floor Central Library, and Humans of Imperial) feature(d) identical posting styles, graphical design and use of language. These features are also consistent with the Imperial Secrets page.

Felix has spoken to those who previously lived in halls with the student believed to be behind the pages, and also cast a net further to find more out about his background. The individual has been confirmed as suffering from a number of health issues, and often exhibited irrational behavioural patterns.

Those in halls reported that he was asked to move out due to a long stint of thieving food and equipment from the kitchens over an extended period of time. The individual was only caught once, as those who shared a kitchen with him planted a camera overnight, and repeatedly caught him on film emptying the fridges and cupboards.

There are also a number of reports in the public domain about the individual being involved in multiple cases of theft in his home country during a year out from Imperial, complete with pictures. This has subsequently led to a criminal record, as well as a fine and jail time.

College were unable to provide us with a reason for the suspension of the investigation, stating that “action taken by the College is considered on a case-by-case basis. It would not be appropriate to comment on individual cases.”

We emailed the individual in question for comment, although they did not respond.