An investigation chaired by Registrar and Deputy President of University College Dublin (UCD) Prof Mark Rogers into the existence of the “UCD 200” Facebook group has dismissed the allegations and found no definitive evidence of the group’s existence, Trinity News has learned.
According to an article published earlier this month in the College Tribune, UCD’s student newspaper, as many as 200 UCD students, predominantly studying agricultural science, formed a Facebook chat group in which explicit photos and anecdotes of female students were shared and rated without their consent.
The report recognised that “identifying the [Facebook page] is the only mechanism for assuring a definitive outcome,” and that failure to find evidence of such a page allowed for only one conclusion to be drawn, though Rogers conceded that “failure to identify such a site, no matter how intensive the investigation, could not represent absolute proof that such a site did not exist.”
The report states that evidence cited in the Tribune article, written by politics editor Jack Power, was “based on hearsay from anonymous comments on Yik Yak.” Rogers was unable to find any student who had any “first-hand sightings” of Yik Yak postings specifically referring to the existence of the alleged page.
The report does, however, confirm the existence of a Yik Yak sent by an individual claiming to be a member of the UCD 200 page. The Yik Yak states: “I don’t even partake in what’s happening, I personally only have sent 3 photos and a story or 2.” The report quickly added that due to the anonymous nature of the Yik Yak app, it is impossible to determine the identity of the author of this post, making the veracity of the claim impossible to verify.
Tribune writer Jack Power, in speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Marian Finucane Show, has maintained that he stands by the story, arguing that the paucity of evidence of the Facebook group could be due to the fact that students participating in the page would risk incriminating themselves and risk expulsion had they decided to come forward.
An email sent to the UCD student body regarding the report findings also requested that the Tribune publish a clarification to point out the “lack of first hand evidence” of the allegations. The email cites the “widespread public reporting of up to 200 students involvement in the activity under investigation as fact” as opposed to allegation, though it does not claim that the Tribune ever attempted to obfuscate the truth of the information at hand at the time of reporting.
This is not the first time in which the use of Yik Yak in Irish universities has lead to investigations – earlier this year a Yik Yak thread in University College Cork (UCC) lead to accusations of dealing cocaine being levelled against UCCSU Welfare Officer Katie Quinlan. Quinlan has denied the allegations in a post written on TheBuzz.ie and no evidence supported the drug dealing claims has come to light.
