Student Insult Web Site Shut Down

A Web site that published crude and malicious rumors about Southern California middle and high school students was shut down Thursday after a public outcry from parents and students.

Schoolscandals.com, a 3-year-old Web site run by Western Applications, a Nevada-based corporation, had featured links for chat rooms about nearly 100 Southern California middle and high schools with postings referring to students as “whores,” “sluts” and “losers.”

Those chat rooms are now closed, and a message reads that the bulletin board has been suspended “until some method could be devised to control the content on the forum.... There is nothing any of us can do about it. We have no money, so we have no power.”

Ken Tennen, a West Hills attorney who represents the Web site owners, did not return telephone calls seeking comment, although he told The Times last week that those who were calling for the site to be shut down were trying to silence free speech.

Ray Lopez, producer of the “John and Ken Show” on KFI-AM (640), said they first aired a segment about the Web site last week after reading about it in The Times, and received hundreds of e-mails and telephone calls from angry students and parents.

“High school students are really insecure to begin with, and something just needed to be done about this,” Lopez said.

One woman, whose son attends a Las Virgenes School District school and who was ridiculed on the site and had counseling, said she was thrilled that it was shut down.

“I am glad the Web site is over and [my son] is glad it’s done,” she said. “He doesn’t want to be hurt anymore, and he doesn’t want other kids to be hurt.”

The message now on the site complains about the radio station’s campaign against it.

A 1996 federal law protects many Internet service providers from lawsuits about their content. Only those sites that hold the right to create and edit material on their sites can be held liable for content, said attorney Mark Radcliffe.