Students across the UK have been outraged after looks-rating website, Ratemash.com, uploaded over 150,000 Facebook profile photos without permission.
The site asks users to rate the gallery of photos either ‘hot’ or ‘not’ as they appear in succession. Featuring over 138 universities, the top 50 rated students from each university have been ranked, although for many visitors each photo appeared to have 22 ‘points’, no matter where it had been ranked. Site users can find links to the students’ personal Facebook pages via the list.
Many of the students featured were unaware they were on the site. Ellie Jacobs was ranked as the ‘number one’ girl at Exeter University. She told Exeposé: “It was a total invasion of my privacy and has made me very wary about social media. Shocked to be number one also […] It’s so creepy.”
Fellow Exeter student, Katie Barker was also featured on the site. She posted on Facebook to say: “Seeing my own face on ratemash.com makes me doubt how secure Facebook’s privacy settings are (and full-blown deactivation shouldn’t be necessary for people who already have strict privacy settings – so annoying)!”
Reacting on Twitter, students across the UK expressed both disgust and concern.
feel very freaked out and violated to discover myself on ratemash #howcreepy
— Evie Booton-Collins (@eviebooton) November 22, 2013
When stalking and harassment is common on the Internet, I do wonder whether @RateMash has considered the safety of the people on their site
— Jessica Wynn (@Jess_chemgeek) November 22, 2013
Ratemash’s founder, Michael Healy (19) has been reported as claiming that users add their friends to the site while signing up. With six employees and a £30,000 start-up investment, the company is based in Notting Hill, London.
A description on the website purports it to be, “…a buzzing community with members within universities mostly in the UK and around the world who like to go out, party and enjoy themselves. The idea of Ratemash is to make it easier to meet new people in universities and to make going out cheaper, more fun and seamless.”
It has compared itself favourably to popular, and notorious, dating website Tinder, with Healy saying in a recent interview: “Better than competition Tinder: Location based=creepy people, people you never seen before, people not in a social group(school, office etc).”
Facebook has told the Huffington Post UK that it is investigating the website. Some have commented that the site bares close resemblance to ‘facemash’, the ‘hot or not’ website Mark Zuckerberg created as a predecessor to Facebook. Third year Leeds student, Hayley Sims told Exeposé: “It is weirdly like facemash… and both of them are terrible ideas!”
Ratemash’s activities seem sure to rekindle debates about privacy and sexualisation online.
At the time of writing, the website appears to be experiencing technical problems.
Have your photos been used on Ratemash without permission? Contact Exeposé Comment to have your say on the issue.
Olivia Luder, Online Editor
Additional reporting by Liam Trim, Online Editor
Editorial Note: We have Ellie’s permission to use her profile picture for this article, thank you Ellie.
exeposedev 