Reverse trolling sweeps American schools with craze for Facebook pages dedicated to anonymous compliments

Students at Queens University in Ontario were the first to set up such a page in September

Since then the idea has been taken up at schools across the U.S. and Canada with nearly 100 now listed on Facebook



A craze for compliments is sweeping Facebook after high school and university students set up pages where users could give friends at the same school a boost anonymously.

The sudden outbreak of 'cyber-graciousness' amongst youngsters in the U.S. and Canada has been hailed as a refreshing change from the bullying and trolling the internet has become notorious for.

According to reports, four students at Queens University in Ontario, Canada, were the first to set up such a page for their institution several months ago.

Reverse trolling: The Queens U Compliments page, set up in September, has sparked a craze across America for Facebook pages where school students can give their peers an anonymous boost

The idea quickly took hold among youngsters elsewhere and there are now nearly 100 such groups on Facebook, most based in Canada and the U.S.



The Queens U Compliments Page , set up September 12, invited students to 'inbox a compliment for a Queen's student and have it published anonymously'.

Since then thousands of compliments have been posted on the page, which already boasts nearly 5,000 friends.

The pages work by accepting compliments sent directly to an inbox, which administrators then re-post the person for whom the compliment is intended tagged so it shows up in their Facebook notifications.

Very nice: One post as it appears on the Queens U compliments page

The compliments are reposted anonymously by the page's administrators, so their recipients have no idea who their flatterer is.

One such compliment recently posted on the Queens U Compliments page reads: 'Sam Farkas is simply wonderful. Down to earth and kind.'

Another says: 'Mark B Charette this man is the hardest working individual I know, he deserves some respect for always putting others before him. Never give up and keep being a bouss [sic].'

A third gushes: 'Brody Herberman is such a gem. She's always there as a shoulder to cry on and she never fails to make you feel ten times better. Plus she always looks so cool! Love you girl.'

Glenn Stutzky, an instructor in the School of Social Work at Michigan State University, where students set up a similar page, told the Detroit Free Press they could have 'a contagious effect in a positive sense'.

'There is so much negativity today, whether you see it on TV or in movies or even in just personal relationships. This is like a breath of fresh air,' Mr Stutzky said.

'I like the idea of having something other than cyber-bullying. This is cyber-graciousness.'

'Cyber-graciousness': The Columbia Compliments page for New York's Columbia University. Glenn Stutzky, an instructor at Michigan State University, where students set up a similar page, said it was a 'breath of fresh air'

EURO STUDENTS TO SUE FACEBOOK OVER CHANGES TO PRIVACY

As U.S. students use Facebook to launch spontaneous campaigns of anonymous goodwill, students on the other side of the Atlantic are set to sue the social network claiming it has not done enough to protect the privacy of its members.

Privacy campaign group europe-v-facebook, a Europe-wide student group which has been lobbying for better data protection by Facebook for over a year, said it planned to take legal action in Ireland, where Facebook has its international headquarters.

The move is one of a number of campaigns against the giants of the internet, which are under pressure from investors to generate more revenue from their huge user bases but which also face criticism for storing and sharing personal information.

Internet search engine Google, for example, has been told by the European Union to make changes to its new privacy policy, which pools data collected on individual users across its services including YouTube, gmail and social network Google+, and from which users cannot opt out.

Europe-v-facebook has won some concessions from Facebook, notably pushing it to switch off its facial recognition feature in Europe.

But the group said last week the changes did not go far enough and it was disappointed with the response of the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which had carried out an audit after the campaign group filed numerous complaints.

Another youngster to take up the idea of setting up a compliments page for his school was Eyal Hanfling, a pupil at Walt Whitman High in Bethesda, Maryland, a state-funded school with 2,000 students.

After seeing similar pages complimenting friends across the country coming up in his news feed, he anonymously created the account one evening. Within 24 hours his page had attracted more than 300 compliments.

'I was really worried that people would take advantage of the system and write horrible things about their classmates and peers,' Eyal told NBC News .

But, he added, of the roughly 1,500 comments submitted over the four days he ran the page, just four or five were derogatory, with only one using a profanity.

Indeed, in what could be soon as a total reverse of the usual online trend to ever more unpleasant insults, the complimenting soon became competitive.

'Someone would post a compliment, and someone else would post an even longer, even more supportive and even funnier compliment,' Eyal said.

Eventually he closed the Whitman Compliments page, before writing a column for his school's student paper in which he identified himself as the forum's creator.

Peers responded to his efforts by giving him a standing ovation as he walked into class soon after.

Despite his pleasure at the outbreak of goodwill that his page caused, Eyal felt compelled to shut down his popular page because of the time he spent on it meant he was unable to complete schoolwork.