The Triple Threat: Platform, Moderator, and University Liability for Anonymous Campus Harassment

Fizz, the social media app that provides a private anonymous message board for college and high school students, has, since its founding in 2021, established itself on more than 620 campuses and has raised $41 million in funding as of September 2025. [1] At each school, Fizz is monitored primarily by students at that same school. [2]The app is expanding rapidly, quadrupling its active user-count in the past few months. [3] While Fizz has a “promise of wholesome community building,” it has also faced controversy. [4] Due to its anonymity, bullying, sexism, and misinformation, among other deleterious externalities, have thrived. Fizz (and similar apps) were even banned at UNC last year, with UNC System President Peter Hans claiming that “are the modern equivalent of scrawling crude rumors on the bathroom wall.” [5] This all calls into question the legal status of Fizz, which has yet to be clearly stated.

Federal law provides broad protections for platforms like Fizz in general. Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act establishes that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” while 230(c)(2) offers protection to platforms which moderate in good faith to remove “material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” [6]

Despite Section 230’s broad protections, campus-oriented platforms like Fizz may have modified liabilities. In 2019, the Fourth Circuit held that universities can be held liable for failing to adequately respond to harassment through anonymous-messaging apps, like Fizz. The case of Feminists Majority Foundation v. Hurley found that harassment at the University of Mary Washington through the now-defunct YikYak app (which is similar to Fizz) made the university liable for not addressing the harassment. In the process, the Court rejected the University’s argument that they could not be liable due to the anonymity of the posters. [7] Thus, responsibility for harassment can be placed on the universities, not Fizz itself. Fizz’s lack of responsibility for user generated content is made clearer by Fizz’s Term of Service, which, although stating such “will not be defamatory, libelous, unlawfully threatening, or unlawfully harassing,” is not the responsibility of Fizz. Fizz “disclaims any responsibility for User Generated Content,” “Cannot be held liable for claims relating to User Generated Content,” and “Is not obligated to monitor, review, or remove User Generated Content.” [8]

This all highlights certain constitutional tensions, because cases like McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission have highlighted that anonymous speech is “an essential component of the right to free speech,” which is protected under the First Amendment. In the context of college campuses, though, it is not clear whether this protection extends to Fizz where anonymity facilitates bullying, harassment, and personal experiences without fear of repercussion. [9] Moreover, Tinker v. Des Moines established that students retain constitutional rights at schools, including the right to free speech. In order to censor speech at schools, educational authorities would need to show that permitting such speech would significantly interfere with the school’s function. [10]

Fizz represents the intersection of multiple zones of legal uncertainty: platform liability, moderator liability, and university liability. Although Section 230 protects platforms like Fizz, the inherent campus-centric nature of Fizz complicates the protection. Moreover, Fizz’s reliance on student moderation blurs the boundary surrounding private platform management and creates shared accountability between the moderation team and Fizz itself for maintaining a safe environment. In brief, Section 230 and Title IX result in the limitation of Fizz’s liability, the expansion of universities’ liability for harassment, and the First Amendment only serves to confound the whole matter. This legal triad is dangerous and results in dangerous gray areas where harrasment persists without clear accountability.

However, the rise of anonymous campus platforms like Fizz exposes an inherent tension between free speech and community protection in America, and they become, even from a social perspective, more pronounced at a closed community like setting of a college campus. The First Amendment’s right to free speech, which the Courts have affirmed continues to anonymous speech, must now be reconciled with universities’ duties to maintain educational integrity and prevent harassment on their campuses (both physical and digital). Therefore, it is the recommendation of the author that legal frameworks be updated to address the new (and growing) needs created by anonymous apps like Fizz. Until this day, the existing gray areas will cause responsibility gaps that will, ultimately, cyberbullying and damaging content will continue to proliferate on Fizz.

Edited by Taran Srikonda

Endnotes

[1] Malik, “College Social App”; Wall Street Journal, How the Fizz App.

[2] Wall Street Journal, How the Fizz App.

[3] Malik, “College Social App.”

[4] Rogelberg, “This Gen Z Startup.”

[5] Hans, Remarks to the UNC Board of Governors, 1.

[6] Communications Decency Act.

[7] Dion, “Fourth Circuit Expands.”

[8] Fizz Social Corp., “Terms.”

[9] Sperry, “Right to Anonymous Speech.”

[10] Justia Law, “Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, 393 U.S. 503 (1969).”