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Revision as of 08:13, 9 April 2019

The Duke F*** List is a 42-page Powerpoint presentation created in 2010 by a Duke University senior, Karen Owen. The document detailed sexual encounters with Duke male athletes during Owen’s time at the University and was presented as a 'Senior Thesis' to her friends. The in-depth nature of her "faux senior thesis", as well as her decision to include the names of individuals with whom she had fornications with during her time at Duke, triggered a series of disputes, many of which involving legal action.

Karen Owen

Karen F. Owen grew up in Branford, Connecticut where she graduated from high school in 2006. As a college student at Duke, Owen studied history and had a strong interest in sports. ^[1]

However, it wasn't until after her graduation from Duke in 2010 that Owen released her "faux sex thesis" in the form of a comically thorough PowerPoint. Owen faced significant backlash from members of the Duke community. Anticipating online harassment, Owen promptly deleted all of her social media following the incident. She was also contacted by producers and writers about creating documentaries and books about her, but she declined them all. Owen made it a point to stay out of the public light. ^[2] By the end of the incident, Owen faced no criminal charges. ^[3]

The List

Creation and Spread

The F*** List was created as an inside joke among Owen and her friends in 2010, shortly before graduating. Titled ‘An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal education’, the document was originally emailed by Owen to 3 of her friends.^[4] But, once something is in the infosphere it is essentially available to the public.

Evidently, one of them leaked the list, which quickly spread around campus and appeared on sites such as Jezebel and Deadspin. These sites released the full version of the “study” without hiding any of the names of those involved. Most of the men were lacrosse players, which exacerbated news and media coverage of the story, as the Duke Lacrosse Case had occurred only 4 years prior.

Methodology

Each athlete was assigned a subject number, followed by details about their sexual encounters with Owen. These details included memorable moments, pros, and cons.’’’ Ratings were assigned on a 10 point scale using physical attractiveness, size, talent, creativity, aggressiveness, entertainment, athletic ability, and bonus. Tiebreakers were decided by physical attractiveness.

The Aftermath

Following the release of her powerpoint presentation, Karen Owen received a significant amount of backlash from peers and university faculty among the Duke community. When Owen wrote the document, she intended it to only be shown to her group of friends as it was supposed to be a private joke. Just as most things on social media, the document spread around unexpectedly. Shortly after the document was shared, it was also posted on many different websites. Once Owen realized that her document had been shared to more than just her group of friends, she practically disappeared from social media.

Owen quickly made it clear that her intention was never to spread the project past her friend group and release the personal information of the 13 men. Owen failed to understand that a document would not remain private when shared online. She instantly retreated from any public attention, deleting all social media, excluding an extremely private Facebook profile within days of the list going viral.^[5] Interestingly, similar results turn up for the men she exposed, with most of them having little to no public online presence. Owen spoke to Jezebel, stating, “I regret it with all my heart. I would never intentionally hurt the people that are mentioned on that.” Proving this point, Owen turned down book and movie deals with the desire to put the event in her past.^[6] Many saw her as a potential female counterpart to Tucker Max, who she explicitly mentioned in her thesis, but she wanted nothing to do with this style of vulgar writing. Several people came out and spoke about the fact that Karen Owen's document showed many aspects of college culture, specifically partying culture, that is an issue and must be addressed on a larger scale ^[7].

Online Reaction

Online, many people began to attack Owen for her actions and lack of real accountability once the dust had settled.^[8] Interestingly, Tucker Max spoke out and defended her actions, claiming that people basically got a hold of her diary and her personal information had been compromised as well. ^[9]

Ethical Concerns

Privacy

Owen’s actions clearly violated the privacy of the men involved in her sexual past. Richard Mason states in Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age that, “Collections of information reveal intimate details about a person and can thereby deprive the person of the opportunity to form certain professional and personal relationships.”^[10] This case clearly violated the males’ privacy, as these bedroom tales are the most intimate information one can find out about an individual. While Owen did elect to send this Powerpoint to her friends, her own privacy was compromised as well that of the list. It is not a coincidence that almost all parties involved have retracted themselves from the online sphere. Much of Mason’s writing discusses companies collecting data online about their users. This situation is more difficult, however, as the information was collected in the most private setting possible. I think Max was correct in comparing the list to a diary. It was meant to be shared with a few friends but instead was spread to the world. Nevertheless, Owen threw away the males’ privacy as soon as she started her thesis.

Anonymity

While Owen originally made an oversight, the news sites that published the list failed to protect the anonymity of the men involved. Kathleen Wallace states in Online Anonymity that, “computer-mediated or online communication may encourage the impression that one is anonymous”.^[11] While this communication of information started in person, the men likely expected that the story of their night wouldn’t be spread online. They acted in a manner that was accepted by all immediate parties involved, not with the judgment and opinions of those who ended up being privy to their actions as a result of the list being posted online. But when Jezebel and Deadspin posted the list without blacking out any of the names, is proof that maybe they should have. Deadspin has since updated the article to exclude names.^[12] Names, pictures, education, and extracurricular activities of all the men were instantly spread across the web, not to mention the grotesque details of sexting, dirty talk, and unconventional sexual activities. These websites committed atrocious oversight when releasing information about people to the entire world, that was really only meant for three friends.

Distributed Accountability

If you searched Karen Owen on the internet today, nine years later, all of the results are regarding the Duke scandal. Even if Karen Owen wanted no longer wanted this information about her to be online, she simply does not have the right to be forgotten in the United States of America. “Digitization and cheap online storage make it easier to remember than to forget, shifting out ‘behavioral default’”^[13]. Information online today is more durable and retrievable than ever before, so it is nearly impossible for Karen Owen to get the Duke Scandal disassociated from her name. However, if you were to search the men involved in the scandal, you would find their LinkedIn profiles and knowledge pertaining to what they are doing now. Ben Grisz is a Senior Analytics Consultant at IBM, Zach Howell is a banker, and Jake Lemmerman is an analyst at Taco Bell. The Duke scandal does not come up in their Google searches, while it is what solely comes up In Karen Owen’s. The internet holds Karen Owen completely accountable, while the men are unaffected. There is much public debate regarding this double standard and questions are raised as to whether or not this situation would be different if a male were the author instead of a female.

Conclusion

It is true that Owens implicated anonymity and privacy from the moment she wrote this thesis. Ironically, the public forgot a key point she had no intention of showing this thesis to anyone outside of her friend group. It makes one wonder as to why she was the only person being potentially charged with the crime. The public seems to forget that one of her friends posted without her knowledge or permission, therefore, that person should have been in the midst of the potential legal action. However, one can only hope that this was was a public lesson for others as to be more careful and considerate of how privacy and anonymity can implicate someone and potentially limit future opportunities for the potential "victims".

References

1. ↑ Alptraum, Lux (2018, April 3rd). There Is Life After Campus Infamy Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/campus-sex-women-exposure.html
2. ↑ Hill, Kashmir (2018, April 3rd) https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2010/10/01/how-karen-owen-and-tyler-clementi-lost-control/#681f282b159d
3. ↑ Magary, Drew (2018, April 3rd) https://deadspin.com/whats-duke-fuck-list-author-karen-owen-up-to-these-da-5912350
4. ↑ http://today24news.com/breaking/duke-university-scandal-excelling-in-the-realm-of-horizontal-academics-085330
5. ↑ https://deadspin.com/whats-duke-fuck-list-author-karen-owen-up-to-these-da-5912350
6. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/campus-sex-women-exposure.html
7. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/style/campus-sex-women-exposure.html
8. ↑ https://bleacherreport.com/articles/484093-karen-owen-duke-the-latest-from-a-messy-sexy-scandal#slide9
9. ↑ http://tuckermax.me/karens-owens-and-the-duke-fuck-list/
10. ↑ https://umich.instructure.com/courses/273552/files/folder/Readings/3%20Weeks%208-10?preview=9617572
11. ↑ https://umich.instructure.com/courses/273552/files/folder/Readings/2%20Weeks%204-7?preview=9617526
12. ↑ https://deadspin.com/the-full-duke-university-fuck-list-thesis-from-a-form-5652280
13. ↑ Toobin, Jeffrey. “The Solace of Oblivion.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/29/solace-oblivion