Fizz app raises concerns about privacy and harassment

A new app is fizzing on campus. It’s called Fizz, and it is an increasingly popular anonymous app that is toeing the line between strengthening campus community and opening up a space where users can bully and harass other students.

One post about a University of Richmond employee said, “You’re a bitch! Fuck you and you’re bloodline. You are a waste of oxygen and I wish upon you a sad and dreadful life.”

According to Fizz's website, the app creates specific university communities that users access by signing up with their campus-specific email address. They then become part of a forum with options to upload text posts, photos and polls, which can then be upvoted or downvoted by other users. As of Dec 8, top posts in the app had up to 1,300 upvotes. 

Posts include people asking what is being served at Heilman Dining Center, or making affectionate remarks about UR’s unofficial mascot, Triceragoose. But there are also posts that push the boundary of what some believe should be shared on a public forum, including posts that may be too personal or malicious. One recent post said: “feeling like cheating on her rn.”  Fizz tries to combat negative posts with a pop-up screen in which a user must agree that what their posting is not bullying, personal info, hate speech, misinformation, obscene or illegal content or spam before any content can be posted to the app.

Multiple students have posted photos of UR senior Caitlin Sales walking with her boyfriend without her consent. Sales, who is frequently called “pikachu hat girl” by Fizz users, said that when the posts started to appear she was flattered that people thought she and her boyfriend were a cute couple, and that the campus liked her signature Pikachu hat, which was a gift from her boyfriend’s parents. As more posts were shared about her, she started to feel uncomfortable. 

“As it went on, there were a lot of pictures of me popping up,” Sales said. “People just started taking pictures of me without my consent, just out of nowhere, as I'm leaving class or going to class, and it felt very paparazzi style, like, ‘oh my god, someone is just gonna take a picture of me doing who knows what.’” 

Sales said her feelings toward Fizz are overall negative. She said anonymity gives users too much power and allows them to be malicious towards their peers without accountability, including disrespecting others’ personal space. She urges anyone who gets bullied on the app to take everything said with a grain of salt.

“Please ask for consent and don't just go paparazzi style on me and take photos of me walking about,” Sales said.

Sophomore Susan Mahoney likes that the app allows her to tune into the UR community. Posts on the app are personalized to the campus culture, with posts like “Do Theta Chi, LAX, and ROTC send google calendar invites to claim when they get to sit at that table,” and “I hope Triceragoose found a warm spot on campus,” referencing where certain groups of students sit in the Heilman Dining Center and campus’s one-of-a-kind goose.

Mahoney said that some posts went a little far, especially when people would post photos of unsuspecting strangers.

“I've seen people post pictures of other people walking around campus,” she said. “But it's interesting because a lot of the comments below will say things like ‘don't do that’ or ‘this is really creepy you can't do this.’” 

Fizz was created by two Stanford University students, Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer. They created the app during the Covid-19 pandemic to keep connected to campus life, Cofer told the Stanford Daily.

“To see how Buzz, now Fizz, has evolved over time to become an inclusive and uplifting platform for everyone and keep positive through content moderation has been rewarding for us,” Cofer said. 

Since then, both students have left Stanford University to work on the app full-time. According to Government Technology, the app has reached more than 80 college campuses and received more than $41.5 million in seed funding from investors like Lightspeed Venture Partners, Octane Venture Partners and other Silicon Valley angel investors. 

Westhampton College Government Association President Lauren Oligino is concerned about the app, especially because students are being named. 

“You should really sit and think about what you're posting, and if you want to have your name attached to it,” Oligino said. 

According to Oligino, WCGA plans to roll out a new campaign with Richmond College Student Government later in the month that will use social media posts and flyers to remind students about internet safety and kindness.

UR Information Services has concerns about the app because every user is required to sign up with their university email, which includes the person's first and last name. 

Director of Information Security, John Craft, said if a breach was to occur, what was once anonymous could come out to haunt the poster. Craft worries that if hackers are able to see the UR accounts attached to student emails, they could attempt to blackmail students or release sensitive information to hurt people's reputations.

Fizz has dealt with security breaches in the past. Three Stanford University students hacked into the platform in 2022 to prove that the app had security issues, The Stanford Daily reported.

The students were well versed in cyber-security and easily found the names, emails and phone numbers attached to every account. 

One of the three students told the Stanford Daily that “Fizz did not have the necessary security rules set up, making it possible for anyone to query the database directly and access a significant amount of sensitive user data.”

According to the Stanford Daily the students notified Fizz about their security vulnerabilities and Fizz responded in Nov. 2021.

Users who post inflammatory material need to worry about hacking and Fizz’s enforcement policy, which says the platform will cooperate with law enforcement. On its website, the rules state that Fizz will release non-public information if subpoenaed for it. This also applies if the platform receives a court order, a search warrant or a request related to an emergency, such as a bomb threat, kidnapping or school shooting.

One positive aspect of the platform is that students are able to serve as moderators or ambassadors, some of which are paid positions. Student moderators flag and delete posts on the app that go against the policy. Ambassadors are employed by the company and advertise the app to the student body via flyers. 

Jada Jones, a junior at the College of William & Mary, told its student newspaper, The Flat Hat, that she was paid by Fizz to entice new users by handing out food.  

“I was able to make $50 by just passing out free donuts for three hours to people who downloaded the app,” Jones said to the Flat Hat.

Fizz ambassadors and moderators at UR did not respond to The Collegian’s request for comment. 

Anyone with a UR email has access to the app, including administrators and faculty. Associate Professor of Economics Saif Mehkari downloaded the app after his student, sophomore Caroline Harkless, told him about a post about registration that mentioned him. 

The post got 1,200 upvotes, and said “me every time registration does not go exactly as planned,” with an attached photo of a phone call to Mehkari. Mehkari said he is notorious for helping Robins School of Business students with registration issues they have.

Mehkari said the post amused him and that he was glad his students know they could go to him for help, but that professors should not join Fizz.

“I think professors should stay away from the app,” Mehkari said. “It's a space for students so professors should not be on it.” 

Oligino said that Fizz is special because it reflects the campus culture in a way that is unique to social media apps by connecting UR students to each other on a platform where they can make campus-specific inside jokes. 

“When people aren't being negative, I'll admit there are some things on there that make me think, ‘oh that's so Richmond,’” Oligino said. 

Contact news writer Andrea Padilla at andrea.padilla@richmond.edu