Liverfess stands in solidarity with Exehonestly after their page was removed

The University of Exeter's student confessions page on Facebook, Exehonestly, is due to be deleted after a series of racist posts made their way on to the platform.

Posts included subliminal messages to do with Nazism, white supremacy and general racism.

After Exeter Uni reported the posts to the local Police Hate Crime Unit, the Exehonestly admins decided to remove the page to protect their identities and careers.

The admin of Liverfess, Liverpool's own student confessions page, spoke to The Liverpool Tab about their thoughts on all of this:

What are your thoughts on Exehonestly shutting down?

'I think that it is a great tragedy for the whole community of the students at Exeter University. These pages are vital for bringing the community together and having a laugh or for helping each other out and bringing awareness for serious issues.'

These pages are very important to student culture, right?

'I'm not entirely clued-up on the ins and outs of Exehonestly, but from submissions through Liverfess a campaign for improved mental health services has been created, and people are always offering advice in a way that they might have done if it had not been anonymous.'

Do you think the uni's actions are valid?

'The posts that I have seen as being "racist" – one of the main reasons for the university to take this action – are so subliminal that you have to really look at it to get the hateful connotations, which is so deeply unfair on the admins.'

Is removing the page the right thing for the admins to do?

'I understand the admins' decision to take down the page, there appears to have been a real threat that they might have been expelled from university which would have meant three years wasted and damage to their future reputations.'

Will this change your approach to posting on Liverfess?

'[It will be] pretty much the same as usual. Obviously I never post anything that's racist or whatever. Any sort of weird joke, such as that 1488 reference, I'll try and work out the meaning of it first, I think.'

1488 is a symbol for white supremacy

The loss of Exehonestly is a blow to the student community in Exeter, who have already created an open letter criticising Exeter Uni over their handling of the situation. Given these lessons, we hope Liverfess sticks around for much longer.