Universities force library dating site FitFinder to be taken down

A student dating website that received four million hits in its first month has been taken down after pressure from universities.


The FitFinder combines Twitter and a classified ads column, allowing students to swap messages of admiration in libraries and social spaces. But there has been concern from university authorities that it is proving a distraction for students during revision term and women’s groups have expressed disquiet after several posts on the site were deemed offensive.



More than 1,000 students signed an online petition to save the site in less than two hours yesterday.



Rich Martell, 21, the UCL student who founded The FitFinder less than a month ago, has been in talks with entrepreneurs to extend the site beyond universities. He hopes to follow the model of Facebook, which extended beyond campuses and now has 400 million users worldwide. He said yesterday that he hoped to get the site back online but pressures from university authorities had forced him to comply.

“I’m wanting to take it forward but I want to clear things up and comply with the unis,” he said. “People want it. It’s only a social networking site.”



The site had previously been removed from some university servers but was reinstated hours later after students complained that the ban violated their freedom of speech. Nonetheless, UCL has disciplined Mr Martell and given him the maximum fine. The university said last week that it had previously asked him to take the site down but he had refused.



Last week the London School of Economics told The Times: “We’re against the site and we’ve asked people not to use it. First of all we had some complaints from students who found it insulting and secondly if you’re in the library you’re there to study.”





http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article7139417.ece